Author Archives: Darren

How To Setup Amazon Linux On AWS

The Amazon Linux AMI is a supported and maintained Linux image provided by Amazon Web Services for use on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). It is designed to provide a stable, secure, and high performance execution environment for applications running on Amazon EC2.

Step 1

Log into your AWS account.

Step 2

Click services and then EC2

Step 3

Click launch Instance

Step 4

Select Amazon Linux 2 AMI

Step 5

Select micro

Step 6

Leave the default values in instance details and click next.

Step 7

If required add more storage and click next add tags

Step 8

Click add tag, type Name in the Key field and then type a server name in the Value feed. Click Next Configure Security group

Step 9

Select my IP for source in the next screen

Step 10

Click review and launch and then launch.

A full Video can be seen here:

How to enable AWS GuardDuty

Leave a reply

Amazon GuardDuty is a threat detection service that continuously monitors for malicious activity and unauthorized behaviour to protect your AWS accounts and workloads. You can enable it to enhance the security on your AWS account.

First log into your AWS account, then click services and search for GuardDuty.

In the next screen click Get Stated

Next Click enable GuardDuty

A video with more information can be found here:

How to install apache (httpd) on CentOS 8

2 Replies

This tutorial will show you how to install the Apache web server on CentOS 8.

You will need to log into your CentOS 8 server and run the following commands:

sudo yum install httpd
- When prompted press y to confirm the installation.
sudo service httpd start
- This starts the apache service
sudo service httpd status
- This insures that the service is running, your output should look similar to the output below.

sudo chkconfig httpd on
- This insures that the apache service is powered on when the server boots.
Next create a file called index.html in the apache root directory by running the following command
- sudo vi /var/www/html/index.html
Press i to go into insert mode and add the following text
- <html> this is my web serer </html>
press esc and then type wq! to quit and save the file.
You can now navigate to your servers ip address or dns name, you should now see a screen similar to the one below.

A full video can be seen here:

How to set up Red Hat on AWS

Leave a reply

This blog post will show you how to set up Red hat on AWS.

A full video of the process can be seen below.

First log into your AWS account
Click Services and then ec2
Click launch instance
Search for red hat and select red hat 8
Select micro instance (it’s free tier)
Click next configure instance details
Click Next Add storage
Click next add tags
Click Add tag
In the Key field type Name and then type a name in the value field for example darren’s server
Click Next: Configure Security group
select my IP and click Review and Launch

Click launch
Select create a new keypair, give it a name and click download keypair.
To connect to our instance we will need to convert the key we downloaded, to do so we will use putty and puttygen they can be downloaded form here: https://www.putty.org/
Open puttygen and click Load
Navigate to where you downloaded your key, click all files, click on your key and click open.
Now click Save Private key, when prompted click yes you want to save without a passphrase.
Now open putty and enter your public IP into the host name or IP address field, then expand SSH on the left had side.
Click auth and then browse, navigate to where you saved your key and select it.
Now click open
Click Yes
Enter ec2user as the username and click enter.
You will now be logged in

Solved firewall-cmd command not found

Leave a reply

This short video will show you how to correct the error:

This error is actually cased by not having firewalld installed on your system.

In this video you will see how to install firewalld

To fix this issue you need to run the following commands:

sudo yum install firewalld sudo

systemctl start firewalld sudo systemctl

enable firewalld sudo systemctl status firewalld

Once these commands are run you can then start using firewall-cmd command.

How To Enable Root On Mac

Leave a reply

A full blog post with all the steps listed out can be found here. Macs are built on Unix and as such, you can use the terminal to run commands. However, by default root is disabled. This video will show you how to enable root on mac so you can run commands as sudo.

Click the apple symbol the upper left of your screen.
Click System Preferences
In the screen that appears click Users and Groups.
Click login options and then click the lock to allow you to make changes.
In the screen that appears enter your username and password.
Click Join next to Network account Server.
Then click Open Directory Utility.
In the screen that appears click the lock to allow you to make changes.
Enter your username and password.
Now at the top of the screen click edit & then Enable Root User.
Enter your root password and then click ok.
You can now run commands as root from the Mac Terminal

A full video can be found here:

How to install FireFox on Mac

Leave a reply

By default, Macs have safari installed as their Web browser. You may want to change this to use something else.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to download and install Firefox on Mac.

Step 1

First, open safari and navigate to:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Then click Download now.

Step 2

Once the download is complete click the downloads symbol in the upper right and then double click Firefox.dmg file.

Step 3

You will then see the dmg file opening.

Step 4

Click and drag the Firefox icon to the apps folder.

Step 5

You will then see firefox installing.

Once this had completed you will then see firefox available in your launcher.

A full video tutorial can be found here:

How to Install Server 2019

Leave a reply

This tutorial will show you how to install Windows server 2019. In this tutorial we use Virtual box but if you are installing it on to a physical machine the process will be much the same.

Step 1

Download Windows Server 2019 from here:

https://software-download.microsoft.com/download/pr/17763.1.180914-1434.rs5_release_SERVER_EVAL_x64FRE_en-us.iso

Step 2

If using virtual box:

Click New
Enter a name for your machine.
For Type select Microsoft Windows
For Version select other.
For Memory give 2GB minimum.
The click create.

Step 3

In the following screen click next.

Step 4

Right click your machine and click settings.

Step 5

Click storage
Click the cd symbol on the right hand side of the screen.

Navigate to where you downloaded you server 2019 iso and click ok.

Step 6

Click you machine name
Then click start.

Step 7

When your machine boots select your language and click next.

Step 8

Click install now.

Step 9

In the next screen select – Windows Server 2019 Standard Evaluation (Desktop Experience) or a different version if you wish to use this one. Then click next.

Step 10

Read and accept the licence and then click next.

Step 11

Click custom: install windows only

Step 12

Click unallocated space and then click next.

Step 13

Server 2019 will now begin to install

Step 14

When the install is complete you will be asked to enter a password for the administrator account – do so and then click finish.

Step 15

You will then be greeted by the login screen and you have successfully installed server 2019.

A full video tutorial can be found here:

How to Host a Website on Amazon S3

Leave a reply

Amazon AWS S3 is a file storage service on Amazon Web Services. You can also host static websites on S3 quite cheaply and easily. This guide will show you how to host a static website on Amazon s3.

Step 1

You will need to create two files on your local machine – you can download them below:

index

error

Step 2

Log into you AWS console go to S3 and click create new bucket.

Step 3

Give your bucket an unique name and click create.

Step 4

Click the checkbox beside your bucket and then click “Edit Public Access Settings”

Step 5

Leave the defaults as is and click save

Step 6

Type confirm and then click confirm

Step 7

Click into your bucket and click upload. Upload the index.html and error.html to your bucket.

Step 8

Tick the two check boxes
Click Actions
Then click make public

Step 9

Click Properties.

Step 10

Then click static Website Hosting

Step 11

Click:

Use this bucket to host a website.
enter index.html for the index document.
enter error.html for the error document.
then click save.

Step 12

Click back on static website hosting

Step 13

Now click your website endpoint – you will be brought to your website.

A full video tutorial can be found here:

AWS User Data | How to run commands on startup Amazon Linux

1 Reply

Userdata on AWS allows you to run commands on start-up when you launch an EC2 instance on AWS. This is known as boot strapping your instance. In this example we will be boot strapping Amazon Linux with the Apache web server.

Step 1

First log into you AWS portal and then click services and EC2

Step 2

Next Click launch instance.

Step 3

Select Amazon Linux

Step 4

Leave the instance as mirco to get the free tier and click next Configure instance details

Step 5

Leave the defaults and scroll down to advanced details and expand it – enter the following lines into the textbox:

#!/bin/bash
yum install httpd -y
 systemctl start httpd
 systemctl stop firewalld
 cd /var/www/html
 echo "this is my test site" > index.html

The text in the code block above installs apache and adds an simple webpage that reads this is my test site. Finally click Next add storage

Step 6

Leave the defaults and click next add tags

Step 7

Give your machine a name and click Next Configure Security Group.

Step 8

Allow port 80 from 0.0.0.0/0 on the security group and click review and launch

Step 9

Click Launch

Step 10

You can proceed without a keypair as we will not log into this instance

Step 11

click your instance ID

Step 12

Wait until your instance is running and then copy it’s pubic IP or dns name

Step 13

Open a new browser and enter the pubic IP of your Linux instance into the address bar. You should now see the simple webpage we created.

A full video tutorial can be found here: