The Importance of Upstreaming Issues

Any software builds upon other software – nothing truly starts from scratch. Even the most trivial “Hello World” demo program relies on a compiler, (most likely) a standard library, and then all of the low level system services, such as the operating system, drivers, and hardware. In any of those areas, it’s pretty much certain … Continue reading The Importance of Upstreaming Issues →

Securing and Rotating WordPress Database Credentials with AWS Secrets Manager

AWS Secrets Manager is a simple and powerful way to handle secrets (such as database username/password credentials). It provides support for storing, retrieving, managing, and rotating credentials at an affordable cost (currently $0.40 per secret per month). However, it’s not terribly easy to use with WordPress. I have not been able to find any documentation … Continue reading Securing and Rotating WordPress Database Credentials with AWS Secrets Manager →

AWS Secrets Manager Rotation in CloudFormation

I found AWS’s documentation for how to setup Secrets Manager secret rotation in CloudFormation to be severely lacking as no AWS documentation explains how to use the secret rotation templates provided by AWS within CloudFormation. Automating Secret Creation in AWS CloudFormation gives an example of how to setup the CloudFormation resources for the secret and … Continue reading AWS Secrets Manager Rotation in CloudFormation →

Using Dynamic References to AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store Secure Strings with Elastic Beanstalk

Dynamic references in CloudFormation to secure strings are very handy, providing a simple way to keep secrets (such as passwords) secure. However, SSM Secure String Parameters are only supported in a limited set of places and Elastic Beanstalk environment variables are not one of them (feature request for adding support). Therefore, if you want to … Continue reading Using Dynamic References to AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store Secure Strings with Elastic Beanstalk →

HTTP/3 Support Added to cURL in Gentoo

HTTP/3 may still be in the draft state but that isn’t stopping software from adding support for it. As a Gentoo developer, I decided to maintain Gentoo’s reputation for not being one to shy away from the bleeding edge by adding (optional) support for HTTP/3 to cURL. I believe that this makes Gentoo the first … Continue reading HTTP/3 Support Added to cURL in Gentoo →

Improve Security and Reduce Costs with AWS SSM Session Manager

AWS recently enhanced its Systems Manager offering with shell access to EC2 instances and then they enhanced it further with SSH tunnel support. With these improvements, it’s now possible to improve your application’s security posture while reducing it’s operational costs and simplifying setup/maintenance. Systems Manager vs Bastion Hosts Minimizing the attack surface, simplifying as much … Continue reading Improve Security and Reduce Costs with AWS SSM Session Manager →

Improve Security with Mount Options

“Defense in Depth” is a key concept of information security; if an attacker can get through one security control, there should be others waiting to thwart him. Mount options are an oftentimes overlooked way to implement defense in depth which are easy to implement, simple to understand, and widely applicable to many situations. The directory … Continue reading Improve Security with Mount Options →