AWS Access Security Basics

Root credentials - To create a free tier account, AWS needs an email id. This account holder becomes the root account user for the Management Console. Root account has access to all the features including billing and accounting details. It is advisable by AWS to create individual user accounts via IAM to access AWS console. Root account user only needs the email id and passed to access the account via AWS console.

AWS Secret Key pair - A secret key pair is used to access AWS via SSH or external CLI tools.

Individual accounts - Root user can create individual user accounts and grant them access to resources on the AWS.

Overview

User - Users can be created via IAM feature in AWS Management Console. A user is created with a username, accountant, passed and AWS secret key. Users can log into AWS with their username, accountant and passed. The secret access key is used for programming via SSH or using CLI.

Group - Users can be organized into groups and each group can have one or more policies

Role - A user or an AWS service (such as EC2) can use a role to access resources or perform actions.

Policies

Technically a policy is a JSON document with an action (allowed), resource (on which action is allowed) and effect (allow or deny). The policy is auto created and can be assigned to a user or a group.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Overview

AWS is primarily a Infrastructure as a Cloud (IaaS) delivery model. Anyone can create an account to use the free tier with AWS from here. Many features in the below dashboard are available with the free tier.

Amazon Web Services uses an IaaS delivery model with a bunch of services for computer, storage, databases, networking, analytics and application services. Below are some of the most popular services (each is a web service) from AWS that I would like to explore in this blog -

• Compute
• EC2
• Storage
• S3
• CDN
• Database
• RDS
• Networking
• VPC
• DNS
• Route53
• Security and Access
• IAM

I will share some live demos as well via video covering above topics. I might touch on other services as well as we go along.

Cloud Delivery and Deployment Models

Three common Cloud Delivery Models are - Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

IaaS is primarily where a cloud provider provides compute, storage, networking, hardware and operating systems IT resources, thereby giving the cloud consumer a high level of control and responsibility compared to other models. Amazon AWS is a IaaS provider.

PaaS is predefined "ready-to-use" environment such as package of an application server, database platform giving less control to the cloud consumer but a higher level of freedom to spend more time on the actual business logic, sparing the administrative and maintenance tasks. Google App Engine is an example of PaaS.

SaaS is where the cloud provider provides the software package to the consumer as a product. Many SaaS products are available in the market. Gmail is an example of SaaS.

Different combinations of these delivery models are also possible based on consumer's requirements.

Cloud Deployment Models - Again there are three common deployment models - Public Cloud, Private Cloud and Hybrid Cloud. As the name explains, public cloud is publicly available, private cloud is within a data center and hybrid cloud is a combination of public and private cloud (mostly via a Virtual Private Network (VPN) access).

Getting Started with Amazon Web Services Cloud

I started a proof of concept (PoC) at work on Cloud technologies last year and was amazed to see the power of virtualization combined with automation. Cloud provides a set of services to the user and IT costs can be tremendously reduced if Cloud is implemented and operated with due diligence. In this blog I will cover Cloud delivery models, Cloud deployment models, basic design patterns that I think are important for each delivery model.

I will soon jump into AWS as AWS has the most extensive set of services in the Cloud. I will go over various Iaas services that AWS offers and will also post some real world deployment scenarios. My goal with this blog is to share the knowledge I have gained and also to share some of the mistakes I have made so that the readers are aware of these. I also expect much more experienced and knowledgable folks out there provide feedback to help this blog become a good resource for anyone interested to learn AWS Cloud services.

So Welcome to the AWS Cloud!

Product Review - SnapIt Screen Capture 3.5

Most of the time when I wanted to do a screen capture on my PC, it felt like such a cumbersome task. Specially when I had to do only one window screen capture. Now I have Snaplt Screen Capture to the rescue.

So I downloaded the software from Digeus and installed it on my PC. I found that it lets me take snaps quickly and also exactly whatever I need to capture I can do it easily. Its Auto Save Images feature is good for a user who likes to save all the images in one predefined folder.

So far so good with SnapIt.

PS: This product review is done as a result of a request from Digeus Inc.

Pool-Based Heterogeneous Mobile Agents for Network Management

Paper can be found at

AMCIS website

Importance of Security Question on account creation at many Internet mail sites such as Gmail and Yahoo

Personal email accounts are used for more than emails these days with the popularity of social networking sites such as Orkut, Facebook where users enter their email addresses.

Security Question plays a very important role while maintaining an account at web mail sites. Many users do not pay attention to the option and often tend to forget the answer. However, if not properly maintained and changed often, the password reset function at these sites can be exploited for an email account if the answer to the security question is very easy (the nature of these questions from the predefined list is personal information related to your pet, favorite teacher, best friend, frequent flyer number). With the limited choice of security questions available to a web-mail user, a hacker can get the answer using social networking skills, or even using popular brute force attack (there is no account lockout while trying to answer the security question).

In case a user forgets his password, he has to reset it by answering the security question. An optional email address is also or by receiving his password reset instructions in email to another account (optionally chosen as a secondary address at account sign-up). In former scenario, the access to a user’s account is only a security question’s answer away for a hacker.

Therefore -

• It is best to define your own security question if the option is allowed.
• Always provide the optional secondary email address at account sign-up. That way, during password reset request, the instructions are sent to that email address.
• Often change the security question (possible at Gmail).

Installing Ubuntu 9.0.4 with Virtual PC 2007

Installing Virtual PC 2007 on Windows Vista was easy. Virtual PC is available free and can be downloaded. Install the Virtual PC. Specify location of the Virtual PC as well as the hard disk.

Installing Ubuntu 9.0.4 took a long time, mostly because of blank screen hanging during the process. It took me a few resets to finally achieve success. Lot of other bloggers have also very helpful steps and tricks that were a great help.

Here are the steps for Ubuntu install -

1.) download ubuntu 9.0.4. its free!!!

2.) On the Virtual PC console, select start.

3.) Select CD menu option and then -capture ISO image to specify the location of ubuntu executable.

4.) Select language and Enter.

5.) Press F4, select Safe Graphics Mode and press Enter.

6.) Press F6, then press Escape, bring the cursor to the line at the bottom and use backspace to replace quiet splash -- with vga=791 noreplace-paravirt. Make sure the Try Ubuntu without any change to your....is selected and press Enter. The blank screen will stay on for a while and installation begins. The boot procedure is visible on the screen and after the procedure, the Install option is is to chosen from the desktop.
Note: I had to press Esc to make the install options visible on the screen. I also did a reset after the first time blank screen hangs on there.

7.) Make your selections for time zone, language and keyboard layout. Continue to click Forward button.

8.) The disk partitioner will take some time.

9.) Continue and finally select Install button. This will install the OS.
Note: The mouse keeps getting lost in the Virtual PC, I googled and found that right Alt key press is good enough to get it back.