Bash-Shell.Net

Learning more about AWS and Terraform

This week I got to dig into using Terraform to configure AWS Cloudwatch alarms for their ElasticSearch service. Overall it was easy to configure in a nice reusable manner. AWS even provides a list ofrecommended alarms which makes it easy to pick what to alert on. The only real issue I ran into is that the sns topics for email alerts cannot be configured via Terraform. It's not a huge issue, but means you can't just have Terraform create those, they need to already be there.

I also got the chance to play around a bit with AWS WAF. I have had my eye on this service for some time, but have not had the chance to implement it until recently. It provides the ability to create rules based on things like geolocation by ip (either actual ip or via http headers such as x-forwarded-for), regular expressions, and a number of other things. AWS also provides their own sets of rules blocking common exploit attempts, service discovery attempts, "bad" ip addresses, ip addresses of known anonymizing proxies, and more. Currently Terraform appears to be unable to configure a number of the features using the WAFv2 API, so I do have to configure and maintain these manually for now, but I will be keeping my eye on the Terraform module for this.

Rotator cuff recovery

Monday was my last day of my Diclofenac prescription, a heavy duty nsaid. I had high hopes that I did not need it anymore because my shoulder was feeling so much better, but by Wednesday it was clear that it was still doing a lot for me. While I am still in far better condition than I started in after the injury on August 2, I do feel like I've gone backwards 1.5 to 2 weeks in terms of mobility and pain. My next physical therapy session and a follow up with a doctor are both on September 8, so I'll probably have more news on this situation for next week.

Brewing

I brewed a rye beer on Sunday, The Rye Or The Kaiser. Several things have gone strange with it - I hit my pre-boil specific gravity but my post boil gravity is far too low. I ended with higher volume than I should have, probably due to less boil-off due to humidity, but not enough to account for the gravity difference. I should have hit about 1.055 for my original gravity and at worst about 1.048 due to extra volume, but ended at just 1.043. Measurements were taken with both a hydrometer and refractometer. I also had to experiment with the yeast a bit due to availability. So this one is not going to turn out as it should have, but hopefully will still be good.