I'm migrating off java web app from GAE to AWS, I have a dozen cron jobs each has a different schedule (one of them has a different timezone), it was quite an easy task # gae, just appending the servlet & time to execute to the cron.xml file.
I know how to set cron job on linux but I'm guessing aws OpsWorks is better suited for this task, how do I attach a java program to OpsWorks ?
I haven't seen any way to run a command (I used Jenkins)
Opsworks uses chef for configuration, so you'd need to write a custom chef recipe to manage your crons, there are public cookbooks available where most of it is already automated:
https://github.com/opscode-cookbooks/cron
Then you can run your recipe via opsworks.
Related
I'm trying to run scripts as part of some of my deployment pipelines in Spinnaker. I don't want to use Jenkins to run these scripts. I would use a Kubernetes job, but these scripts need to execute prior to the Kubernetes deployment.
I was debating creating ECS tasks in AWS which I'd like to run on demand during one of the stages in my pipeline. Does anyone know if it's possible to execute an ECS task directly from Spinnaker?
If not, are there any other ways to execute a command or script in a pipeline outside of using a Kubernetes job or Jenkins server?
One way to do this is to use the Run Job ( Manifest ) stage and just point it to another kubernetes cluster for this. This approach gives you a bit of flexibility since you can monitor the pipeline stage for completion status.
You can also just create an arbitrary API endpoint and trigger via a webhook stage that monitors for completion and use whatever your preferred script execution environment (i.e, Lambda, ECS etc) behind that api endpoint.
Currently working on an environment requirement where we are to push the same file out to multiple EC2 instances running Windows on a scheduled interval. As it stands now, I see a few options and have tried each:
Windows Task Manager: run a basic task on a set schedule invoking the S3 Sync CLI tool
Cons I can see here include: setting up the task on each EC2 instance (there are many).
Lambda: scheduled lambda job that utilizes SSM to run commands on each server in a resource group
Cons: introducing another layer required to execute this task.
Run Command: using an AWS-RunRemoteScript document, run the script (stored in S3) bucket on target instances.
Cons: I'm not positive you can automate these commands on a schedule without adding another layer.
What is the most scalable path forward? Thanks in advance for your help.
Using the Run Command feature of AWS Systems Manager together with either the Maintenance Window feature of AWS Systems Manager or using CloudWatch Events to schedule the execution of Run Command should be useful here.
If you also tag instances appropriately, you can use the tag targeting feature of Run Command to ensure that all instances run the command (including new instances launched in the future as long as they are tagged).
/Mats
Background:
We have several legacy applications that are running in AWS EC2 instances while we develop a new suite of applications. Our company updates their approved AMI's on a monthly basis, and requires all running instances to run the new AMI's. This forces us to regularly tear down the instances and rebuild them with the new AMI's. In order to comply with these requirements all infrastructure and application deployment must be fully automated.
Approach:
To achieve automation, I'm using Terraform to build the infrastructure and Ansible to deploy the applications. Terraform will create EC2 Instances, Security Groups, SSH Keys, Load Balancers, Route 53 records, and an Inventory file to be used by Ansible which includes the IP addresses of the created Instances. Ansible will then deploy the legacy applications to the hosts supplied by the Inventory file. I have a shell script to execute the first the Terrafrom script and then the Ansible playbooks.
Question:
To achieve full automation I need to run this process whenever an AMI is updated. The current AMI release is stored in Parameter store and Terraform can detect when there is a change, but I still need to manually trigger the job. We also have an AWS SNS topic to which I can subscribe to receive notification of new AMI releases. My initial thought was to simply put the Terraform/Ansible scripts on an EC2 instance and have a Cron job run them monthly. This would likely work, but I wonder if it is the best approach. For starters, I would need to use an EC2 instance which itself would need to be updated with new AMI's, so unless I have another process to do this I would need to do it manually. Second, although our AMI's could potentially be updated monthly, sometimes they are not. Therefore, I would sometimes be running the jobs unnecessarily. Of course I could simply somehow detect if the the AMI ID has changed and run the job accordingly, but it seems like a better approach would be to react to the AWS SNS topic.
Is it possible to run the Terrafrom/Ansible scripts without having them on a running EC2 instance? And how can I trigger the scripts in response to the SNS topic?
options i was testing to trigger ansible playbook in response to webhooks from alertmanager to have some form of self healing ( might be useful for you)
run ansible in aws lambda and have it frontend with api gaetway as webhook .. alertmanager trigger -> https://medium.com/#jacoelho/ansible-in-aws-lambda-980bb8b5791b
SNS receiver in AWS -> susbscriber-> AWS system manager - which supports ansible :
https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/mt/keeping-ansible-effortless-with-aws-systems-manager/
Alertmanager target jenkins webhook -> jenkins pipline uses ansible plugin to execute playbooks :
https://medium.com/appgambit/ansible-playbook-with-jenkins-pipeline-2846d4442a31
frontend ansible server with a webhook server which execute ansible commands as post actions
this can be flask based webserver or this git webhook provided below :
https://rubyfaby.medium.com/auto-remediation-with-prometheus-alert-manager-and-ansible-e4d7bdbb6abf
https://github.com/adnanh/webhook
you can also use AWX ( ansible tower in opensource form) which expose ansible server as a api endpoint ( webhook) - currently only webhooks supported - github and gitlab.
Is there any way to install exe/MSI agents in AWS EC2 instances in an automated way?? In specific, I am looking for a counterpart of Azure's Custom Script Extension. [Free of cost]
Scenario:
I want to install BigFix and Datadog agents on 1000 Ec2 instances, this is a one time job, so I am not looking for any solution that involves Chef / Puppet, etc.,
Yes, you can pass a script to the instance that will be executed on the first boot (but not thereafter). It is often referred to as a User Data script.
See:
Running Commands on Your Windows Instance at Launch - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
Running Commands on Your Linux Instance at Launch - Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud
If you wish to install after the instance has started, use the AWS Systems Manager Run Command.
As a sysadmin, i'm looking for an efficient way or best practices that you do on managing an ec2 instances with autoscaling.
How you manage automate this following scenario: (our environment is running with autoscaling, Elastic Load Balancing and cloudwatch)
patching the latest version of the rpm packages of the server for security reasons? like (yup update/upgrade)
making a configuration change of the Apache server like a change of the httpd.conf and apply it to all instances in the auto-scaling group?
how do you deploy the latest codes to your app to the server with less disruption in production?
how do you use puppet or chef to automate your admin task?
I would really appreciate if you have anything to share on how you automate your administration task with aws
Check out Amazon OpsWorks, the new Chef based DevOps tool for Amazon Web Services.
It gives you the ability to run custom Chef recipes on your instances in the different layers (Load Balancer, App servers, DB...), as well as to manage the deployment of your app from various source repositories (Git, Subversion..).
It supports auto-scaling based on load (like the auto-scaling that you are already using), as well as auto-scaling based on time, which is more complex to achieve with standard EC2 auto-scaling.
This is relatively a young service and not all functionality is available already, but it might be useful for your.
patching the latest version of the rpm packages of the server for
security reasons? like (yup update/upgrade)
You can use puppet or chef to create a cron job that takes care of this for you (the cron would in its most basic form download and or install updates via a bash script). You may want to automatically upgrade, or simply notify an admin via email so you can evaluate before apply updates.
making a configuration change of the Apache server like a change of
the httpd.conf and apply it to all instances in the auto-scaling
group?
I usually handle all of my configuration files through my Puppet manifest. You could setup each EC2 instance to pull updates from a Puppet Server, then you can roll out changes on demand. Part of this process should be updating the AMI stored in your AutoScale group (this is done with the Amazon Command Line tools).
how do you deploy the latest codes to your app to the server with less
disruption in production?
Test it in staging first! Also a neat trick is to versioned deployments, so each time you do a deployment it gets its own folder (/var/www/v1 /var/www/v2 etc) and once you have verified the deployment was successful you simply update a symlink to point to the lastest version (/var/www/current points to /var/www/v2).
OpsWorks handles all this sort of stuff for you so you can look into that if you don't want to do it all yourself.
how do you use puppet or chef to automate your admin task?
You can use Chef or Puppet to do all sorts of things, and anything they can't (or you don't know how to) do can be done via a bash/python script that you invoke from Chef or Puppet.
I normally do things like install packages, build custom packages, set permissions, download things, start services, manage configuration files, setup cron jobs etc
I would really appreciate if you have anything to share on how you automate your administration task with aws
Look into CloudFormation. This can help you setup all your servers and related services (think EC2, LBS, CloudWatch) through configuration files, thus helping you to automate your entire stack (not just the EC2's Operating System).