A Technical I.T./DevOps Blog
Problem scenario
You have some JSON files like this:
$cat first.json
{“bird”: {“name”: “singy”, “species”: “sparrow”, “amount”: “45”}}
$ cat second.json
{“bird”: {“name”: “flighty”, “species”: “seagull”, “amount”: “21”}}
Within the “bird” key there are other keys. How do you create a tuple with the species values?
Solution
Place first.json, second.json and the Python program below (called reader.py) in the same directory.
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Problem scenario
You want an FTP client on your RHEL server despite it being insecure. What should you do?
Solution
We do not recommend using FTP for security reasons. However it is still used in today’s world. To install an ftp client, run this:
sudo yum -y install ftp …
Continue reading “How Do You Solve the Error “ftp command not found” or Install an FTP Client?”
Test your knowledge of Terraform. (Updated on 8/2/25.)
1. What is the remote state in Terraform?
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2. What underlying tools support the Terraform Application Layer?
a. Java and C++
b. C++ and C
c. Ruby on Rails and Go
d. Groovy and Grails
e. Python, Apache Tomcat, and Maven
f. Flask and Python
g. Perl and Nginx
h.
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If you have not taken the quiz yet, here is a link to test your own knowledge.
1. What is the remote state in Terraform?
A centralized data store with the parameters of the desired configuration for Terraform runs. The parameters for the desired configuration are referred to as a state file in the context of Terraform.
Whereas an individual may use Terraform with the default local state (a local file with desired state configuration data),
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Problem scenario
You are using CentOS/RHEL/Fedora and want to troubleshoot DNS functionality. You are getting “command not found” errors when you try to use the dig or nslookup utilities. What should you do?
Solution
Run this command:
sudo yum -y install bind-utils …
Continue reading “How Do You Install dig and nslookup on a CentOS/RHEL/Fedora Server?”
Problem scenario
Using the AWS CLI how do you determine the AWS region for an S3 bucket?
Solution
Run this command (but replace “foobar” with the name of your bucket):
aws s3api get-bucket-location –bucket foobar …
Continue reading “How Do You Determine the AWS Region for an S3 Bucket?”
Problem scenario
You want to list all the VPC Peering Connections for a specific region using Python.
You want the equivalent of aws ec2 describe-vpc-peering-connections
How do you show (retrieve or fetch) the VPC peering connections using Boto3?
Solution
import boto3
contint = boto3.client(‘ec2’)
var1 = contint.describe_vpc_peering_connections()
print(var1) …
Continue reading “How Do You Display the VPC Peering Connections with Boto3?”
Question
Whenever you read about the MVC, it always involves Microsoft (e.g., and ASP or .NET). Is there a way to use the MVC on purely Linux?
Answer #1
Yes. The ASP.NET MVC framework of the model-view-controller is a Microsoft implementation of it. The MVC generically can be used as an architectural pattern using programming languages on a Linux server. To read more about it,
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Continue reading “Can You Use the MVC (Model-View-Controller) on Linux?”
Problem scenario
You want to write a program to call a bound function in a new thread. How do you do this?
Solution
Run this program (e.g., python foobar.py):
from threading import Thread
class mighty:
def good():
print(“Good”)
def contint():
print(“Hello!”)
if __name__ == “__main__”:
thread = Thread(mighty.good())
thread.start()
thread.join()
print(“thread finished…exiting”) …