SaltStack grains are used for relatively static information such as operating system, IP address, and other system properties. They are also useful for targeting minions, for example whether a system is part of dev/test/prod, or a flag on whether it falls under LifeScience or HIPAA regulation. In this article we will implement a custom grain … SaltStack: Creating a Custom Grain using Python
In a production environment, it is common to have restricted internet access on the production deployment hosts. This means that using the standard ‘npm install’ and pulling modules from the registry.npmjs.org repository is not an option. Given the breadth of the dependency graph required for most modules, this packaging is something you want automated without … Node.js: Packaging modules for offline deployment using npm-bundle
When tasked with deploying a web application and it is not responsive to your browser requests, sometimes you need to take a step back from the complexity of your full stack and run a quick sanity check. You can use netcat as a simple web server to prove to yourself that the network infrastructure is … Ubuntu: Simulating a Web Server using Netcat
Although virtualization has pushed a self-service culture for infrastructure, it is still common in production environments to need your Network Operations team to open the required ports necessary for any new application deployment. So, while you may be able to create the base virtualized host, you can’t go much further without the network connectivity. And … Ubuntu: Pre-Validate Network ACL and Firewall Connectivity with Netcat
When troubleshooting basic connectivity from your SaltStack minions to your Salt master, the first thing to remember is the basic flow – the minions initiate the connection to port 4505/4506 on the Salt master. With this in mind, if you have modified /etc/salt/minion so that the master is explicitly set and logs are set to … SaltStack: Troubleshooting Basic Network Connectivity of Minion on Ubuntu
Before running state.apply against a minion, especially in a production environment, a good sanity test can be to list the states that will be executed without actually running those states. This can be done by adding tests=True to the end of the state command. For example, to check all the states that will be applied … SaltStack: Validating States of Minion without Execution
In production data centers, it is not uncommon to have limited public internet access due to security policies. So while running ‘apt-get’ or adding a repository to sources.list is easy in your development lab, you have to figure out an alternative installation strategy because you need a process that looks the same across both development … Ubuntu: Installing Packages without Public Internet Access
Content Packs are plugins that allow you you to create pre-packaged knowledge about specific event types. For example, you can create a content pack that knows how to extract fields from one of your custom log sources. Beyond extracted fields, you can also add saved queries, aggregations, alerts, dashboards, and visualizations. Incoming Events from Agent … vRealize Log Insight: Creating your own content pack for field extraction
It is common for a virtualized Guest OS base image to have a generic minimal storage capacity. But this capacity can easily be exceeded by production scenarios, performance testing, logging, or even the general cruft of running a machine 24×7. For this reason, extending a virtualized disk can be extremely helpful. Here is a walk … Ubuntu: Extending a virtualized disk using fdisk when not using LVM
When building your logstash filter, you would often like to validate your assumptions on a large sampling of input events without sending all the output to ElasticSearch. Using Logstash metrics and conditionals, we can easily show: How many input events were processed successfully How many input events had errors An error file containing each event … Logstash: Using metrics to debug the filtering process
In my previous posts, I have shown how to test grok patterns locally using Ruby on Linux and Windows. This works well when your VM do not have full internet access, or only have console access, or any reason that you want to test it locally. If you have access to a graphical web browser … Logstash: Testing Logstash grok patterns online
If the logs you are shipping to Logstash are from a Windows OS, it makes it even more difficult to quickly troubleshoot a grok pattern being sent to the Logstash service. It can be beneficial to quickly validate your grok patterns directly on the Windows host. Here is an easy way to test a log … Logstash: Testing Logstash grok patterns locally on Windows