How to properly setup your DNS with using Elastic Beanstalk

If you ever want to be able to swap environments easily (for zero downtime deployments) you need to get your DNS right.

Suppose you have the website http://www.example.com/ and http://example.com/.

Route 53 you need to have the following setup:

example.com (A Record) w/ special Amazon Alias to production-eb.example.com.

production-eb.example.com is an A record with Alias to your load balancer -->

awseb-e-j-AWSEBLoa-113AS0S7GTEST3R-429477073.us-east-1.elb.amazonaws.com

How to get Dell PERC H310 Monitoring on Ubuntu

HWRaid is probably the best set of packages for Ubuntu:

http://hwraid.le-vert.net/wiki/DebianPackages

ppa:

sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://hwraid.le-vert.net/ubuntu lucid main"

wget -O - http://hwraid.le-vert.net/debian/hwraid.le-vert.net.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -

apt-get update

apt-get install megactl

megaclisas-status

Enabling WMI on Windows Azure

To enable WMI on Windows Azure machines:

• Open the firewall port 135
• Set WMI to use a static port

Step one:  Set the DCOM config to use a static port....

Basically, run "dcomcnfg" from command prompt. Navigate the tree to My Computer > DCOM Config > Windows Management and Instrumentation, select properties of that folder.

Go to the Endpoints tab

Select Properties button for Connection-oriented TCP/IP

Use static endpoint, set the port.

Step 2:  Configure WMI to use a fixed port

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb219447(v=VS.85).aspx

1. At the command prompt, type winmgmt -standalonehost
2. Stop the WMI service by typing the command net stop "Windows Management Instrumentation"
3. Restart the WMI service again in a new service host by typing net start "Windows Management Instrumentation"
4. Establish a new port number for the WMI service by typing netsh firewall add portopening TCP 24158 WMIFixedPort

Still testing this myself, so not 100% certain it works.

49154 - TCP Port for DCOM when using wmic.

http://community.zenoss.org/message/69830

winexe -U Administrator%password //157.56.167.120 "C:\\AutoHotKeyScripts\\debug.exe"

To get winexe working make sure to open port 445 on Azure.

When I got the error

[winexe/winexe.c:120:on_ctrl_pipe_error()] ERROR: Failed to install service winexesvc - NT code 0x00000424

I did the following:

sc create winexesvc binPath= C:\WINDOWS\WINEXESVC.EXE start= auto DisplayName= winexesvc 

sc description winexesvc "Remote command provider for Zenoss monitoring"

Creating virtual machines with KVM

I was pretty confused when I first started creating virtual machines. Between Xen, VirtualBox, VMWare, LXC, Docker there are a ton of technologies for virtualization.

I decided to go with KVM. A library called libvirt helps a lot in creating virtual machines (aka domains). Libvirt has a tool called virsh which is what we will be using.

virsh uses xml files for the configuration of the domains. To create one easily you can use the virt-install command. The files are stored are in /etc/libvirt/qemu/

virt-install \

  --name moloko \

  --vcpus=1 \

  --disk /var/kvm/moloko,size=32 \

  --ram 1024 \

  --graphics vnc,password=password,listen=0.0.0.0,port=5910 \

  --accelerate \

  --cdrom /var/kvm/ubuntu-14.04.1-server-amd64.iso \

  --os-type=linux \

  --noautoconsole \

  --boot cdrom,fd,hd,network,menu=on

To delete the domain:

virsh destroy moloko

virsh undefine moloko

How to get mobile data in Cusco, Peru for your phone using Claro

Getting mobile data to work in Cusco was fairly easy. You should make sure you have an unlocked phone that can take a SIM card. I was using a Nexus 4 so it comes unlocked.

Basically you can buy a SIM card at a Claro store. It will cost you 8 soles and will come with no money on it.

There are lots of places that say "Claro" in a big red logo but only some of them are actually official stores that sell the SIM card. When you ask for it they will ask for your passport.

After you get the SIM card you will need to recharge it or put money on it. This is the easiest part because you can then go to any of the shops that say "Claro Recharga". They are like everywhere. The process to put money on a card for a merchant only seems to require a cell phone so almost any merchant can do it.

Now for pricing. It can be found on claro.com at  http://www.claro.com.pe/wps/portal/pe/sc/personas/internet/internet-movil#info-03 You are looking for prepaid internet plans or "Paquetes de Internet". What package you decide to purchase depends on how long you are staying in Peru and how much data you use.

For me I was on T-Mobile back in the US, $50 per 30 days, 500MB worth of 4G internet then drops to 3G. 500MB carried me about the end of the month. I wish it was like 600 or 700MB. Of course that is with only light uploading and streaming.

The thing with Claro is that you have to buy a data pack and it will be good for only a certain amount of time. So the data packs come in 1 hour, 1 day, 3 day, 5 day, 10 day, 15 day, and 30 day amounts. I purchased the 5 day amount at 200MB.

To purchase you first give money to a recharging person. 3 soles is the minimum. I recommend you put 10 soles to buy the 5 day pack. After it is loaded you will get an SMS saying it is successful.

Here are the SMS messages I got. I actually did it 3 times for 5 soles, 5 soles, and the minimum 3 soles.

After your account is loaded then the trick is to SMS the phone number 779 with the text "5d" or "1h" or "3d" depending on what plan you want. This will activate the data pack. It is case sensitive by the way.

After this you should be able to configure your APN settings. These are settings specific to Claro used to access their data network. If you don't have them you can go here http://www.unlockit.co.nz/mobilesettings/settings.php?id=149.

That should be it. The 3G is stupid fast in Cusco. Much faster than in the US.