Daily Notes – AWS Solutions Architect Lesson Dump

by

I spent thanksgiving with my Wife’s family. For much of that time I was without access to internet, which was wonderful. It also means I was unable to post my study notes. That does not mean I did not study for my exam during this time. Today is the first of December. That means I have 15 days before I need to have my notes finalized for the exam. Over the course of my Thanksgiving vacation, I wrote a lot of notes, most of which was from the video linked below:

Daily Notes – AWS Solutions Architect Lesson 4 – S3 Part 3

by

Getting after it this morning. In this section we went over how to set up the AWS CLI on a workstation computer (Debian linux in my case) and how to perform some basic commands with the CLI. Personally, I think learning the CLI and API is going to be where I get the most bang for my buck. I dont like having to interact with a GUI. Below is the video I am using. I started at minute 38 and went through minute 50. Took me about an hour and 10 minutes, so I am still on track for my timeline. I intend to put up another hour long session later today, but I am purposefully not studying for longer than one hour at a time to reduce mental fatigue.

Daily Notes – AWS Solutions Architect Lesson 3 – S3 Part 2

by

My current breakdown for studying works out to about 1 hour per 10 minutes of content. The full Exam Prep Video is 10 hours and 26 minutes. In minutes, the video is 626 minutes long. That means that it will take me about 62.6 hours to get through the content of this course. I can spread that out over the next 3 weeks, which puts me at December 15th to have the basic theory under my belt. That then means that I will have approximately 30 days to collate my knowledge and run through practice exams. That is extremely doable.

Daily Notes – AWS Solutions Architect Lesson 2 – S3 Part 1

by

My personal psychology on this exam feels different than with the RHCSA. I am not confidant with the material like I was going into studying for the RHCSA. That is intimidating. At the same time, I don’t feel like I have something to prove with AWS, because I have no work history with the tool set, so my study sessions feel more relaxed. Finally, my experience with the RHCSA taught me a LOT about proper study habits, and I am having a much more structured experience with the AWS certification… at least, thus far.

HomeLab Tutorials – Part 2 – Standing up a Domain Controller with IDM

by

In our last episode, we learned how to configure a static DNS provider for our homelab network. Having a static DNS provider is my baseline requirement for a functioning homelab environment. The other big hurdle is coherent credentialing and file access. RedHat IDM (IDentity Manager) is a implementation of directory management which provides a native and centralized solution for domain asset management in Linux.

Daily Notes – AWS Solutions Architect Lesson 1

by

After a lot of thought, I have decided to pursue the AWS Solutions Architect as my next certificate. I’ve taken two months off since getting my RHCSA, and feel ready to tackle a new challenge (plus Chef isn’t offering any certifications/exams currently). I have given myself a deadline of January 15th to sit for the AWS SA exam, and plan on purchasing the exam sometime next month.

Chef Tutorials – Part 3 – Configuring A Chef Infrastructure Node

by

Chef is a pull based Central Management service. That means that the client machine PULLS information from the Central Management service. By default, without running the chef client cookbook as shown above, the client will run ONLY when it is invoked manually by a user. Manual invocation is highly useful for testing purposes, but totally defeats the point of automation in a production environment.

Chef Tutorials – Part 2 – Configuring A Chef Infrastructure Workstation

by

This tutorial is part two (Part One Found Here) of a multi-part series detailing the basic use of Chef Infrastructure. I am making this series to help cement my knowledge of the Chef ecosystem, and provide the knowledge I am earning to other people without too many layers of abstraction. Below is an annotated command list which describes the process I used to configure my Chef Workstation.