How Do You Create a Customer Master Key in AWS?

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Problem scenario
You want to create a CMK in Amazon web servers. What do you do?

Solution
Use Secrets Manager with Amazon’s Key Management Service.

1. Log into the AWS console.
2. Go to “Key Management Service”
3. Click on “Create key”
4. Enter an “Alias”. Normally you won’t click on the “Advanced options” unless you have a special reason.

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How Do You Extract a File from a .zip File without unzip?

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Problem scenario
You have a .zip file, on your Linux server, that you want to uncompress. You do not have unzip installed on your machine. What should you do?

Possible Solution #1
Install unzip. If you are using a Debian/Ubuntu distribution of Linux, run this: sudo apt -y install unzip

Possible Solution #2
You could use WinSCP to download the file to your Windows workstation.

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How Do You Find Where the Python Interpreter Will Look for Modules?

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Problem scenario
You want to use custom modules (e.g., .py files that will be called by another Python program). You are trying to figure out which location(s) the Python interpreter will look for such modules. How do you determine the directory where Python will look when it uses the “import” key word?

Solution
Run these three commands (the first is a Bash command and the other two are Python):

python
import sys
print(sys.path) …

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How Do You Troubleshoot the Python Error “subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command ‘…’ returned non-zero exit status 1”?

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Problem scenario
You are automating a Linux infrastructure task with Python using subprocess calls. You get this error “subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command ‘…’ returned non-zero exit status 1”, what should you do?

Solution
Run the Linux command without Python. Then run echo $? to determine the exit code. If you see a 1, that means Python notices this command is not considered to have run successfully.

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What Should The Permissions of the kubectl File Be on a Linux server?

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Problem scenario
You copied the kubectl file. You are not sure what the permissions it should have. When you try to execute it, you get “Permission denied”. What should you do?

Solution
We recommend using this (after you change directories to the one that has the kubectl file): sudo chmod 777 kubectl

When you use conjure-up, it makes kubectl have 777 permissions.

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In AWS’ KMS What Is the Difference between Administrative Permissions and Usage Permissions of a CMK?

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Question
A CMK is an encryption key. In Amazon Web Services, for CMKs (Customer Master Keys) in KMS (Key Management Service), what is the difference between administrative permissions and key usage permissions?

Answer
Usage permissions enable (either IAM users or roles) to encrypt and decrypt data with the AWS KMS API.

Administrative permissions for a CMK allows either an IAM user or role to give usage permissions to other IAM users or roles through the API (and sometimes the web console).

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How Do You Retrieve an Application-Level Secret from AWS?

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Problem scenario
You want to obtain a non-database secret from AWS and you know the name of the secret (in Secrets Manager) and the region it is in. What should you do?

Solution
Prerequisites
You have installed and configured the AWS CLI. If you need assistance with this, click on this posting if you can use pip or this posting if you cannot use pip.

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How Do You Troubleshoot the Error “Secrets Manager cannot invoke the specified Lambda function.”?

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Problem scenario
You try to store a secret, but you see this message:

“Your secret was created successfully but configuring rotation has failed

Secrets Manager cannot invoke the specified Lambda function. Ensure that the function policy grants access to the principal secretsmanager.amazonaws.com. “

What do you do?

Solution
Try this posting.

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What is the Default Password with a Raspberry Pi?

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Problem scenario
Using Raspberry Pi, you do not know the root / administrator password. For example you go to Menu -System Tools -Root terminal. You are prompted with “Enter the administrative password.” No password works. What should you do?

Solution
We do not know. We suggest you change it if you want to know for certain. Open a regular terminal.

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