Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tips for Getting Started With AWS

jamescarl.us

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#21

Post by jamescarl »

euphemize wrote: post #15

A bit disappointed by this. As mentioned by ceejayoz, don't upload your .pem file anywhere! AWS has tons of weird/interesting quirks - I thought this article was going to be about those. Here's my 5 tips for AWS... - SQS: encodes messages by default! plan accordingly if you are going to be sending large bodies (265K max). - ELBs: they need time to warm up if you get a huge traffic spike. ELBs won't start scaling unle…

I really apologize for wasting your time perhaps I will post these as a question next time. In any case I sincerely appreciate the feedback and your additional tips.

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#22

Post by zwily »

euphemize wrote: post #15

A bit disappointed by this. As mentioned by ceejayoz, don't upload your .pem file anywhere! AWS has tons of weird/interesting quirks - I thought this article was going to be about those. Here's my 5 tips for AWS... - SQS: encodes messages by default! plan accordingly if you are going to be sending large bodies (265K max). - ELBs: they need time to warm up if you get a huge traffic spike. ELBs won't start scaling unle…

> - S3: watch out for "eventual consistency" if you're going to upload lots of files and try to access them right away - they might not be available immediately.

This is only true in the "US Standard" region. Other regions get read-after-write consistency (but not read-after-update, read-after-delete, etc). "US Standard" is the only bi-coastal S3 region, so I guess that consistency level would be too expensive, latency-wise.

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#23

Post by cpucycling »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #16
MichaelBurge wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I email myself my encryption passwords so that I - and any interested government agencies - can log in without me needing to remember them all the time.

Worry not, I'm sure the US government would just go straight to AWS. No need to get your private key from you. Edit: Please don't just downvote when I rebut sarcasm/snark with fact. Discuss!

AWS does not have your private key, that's how public key infrastructure works. ;)

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#25

Post by johnnymonster »

#1 tip Know your AWS service limitations before you start using it! specifically with services like Cloudsearch and dynamodb!

2nd, know your usage upfront before you incur thousands of dollars in usage fees! services like dynamoDB can become very expensive very fast!

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#26

Post by toomuchtodo »

cpucycling wrote: post #23
toomuchtodo wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worry not, I'm sure the US government would just go straight to AWS. No need to get your private key from you. Edit: Please don't just downvote when I rebut sarcasm/snark with fact. Discuss!

AWS does not have your private key, that's how public key infrastructure works. ;)

Once you have physical access, no need for the private key. Unless you're encrypting all of your data, they'll just snapshot your VM to go through it later (or your EBS volume, depending on where the data is stored).

And yes, you can write out whatever is in RAM just as easily.

Did everyone forget that "cloud" means "someone else fully controls the hardware"?

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#28

Post by Sssnake »

falcolas wrote: post #19

My tip number 0: Use a CMS. It's a beautiful thing to start an ec2 instance, run Ansible, get a drink of water, and return to a fully provisioned and configured machine. Tip 0.1: Use Vagrant with an EC2 box, and just 'vagrant up' yourself a fully operational machine.

Why are people so thrilled about a slower more error prone way to do what amazon provides already? Just make an ami for each kind of server you want. Now you skip the waiting part, and the "oops, my pile of messy ruby scripts fucked up configuring the server" parts.

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#29

Post by cpucycling »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #26
cpucycling wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AWS does not have your private key, that's how public key infrastructure works. ;)

Once you have physical access, no need for the private key. Unless you're encrypting all of your data, they'll just snapshot your VM to go through it later (or your EBS volume, depending on where the data is stored). And yes, you can write out whatever is in RAM just as easily. Did everyone forget that "cloud" means "someone else fully controls the hardware"?

Right, but this has nothing to do with the practice of protecting your private key.

That the most sophisticated attacker with the most resources may be able to tunnel into your data is no excuse for lax security.

Re: Tips for Getting Started With AWS

#30

Post by mh- »

ceejayoz wrote: post #12
dice wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The AWS Console is perfectly usable for 99% of what you'll need to do. Most users won't need anything beyond it. I believe the author was referring to navigating the filesystem and running commands via CLI (e.g. `cd` and `ls`, not `ec2-describe-instances`).

If that's the case, it's kinda pointless advice - none of the commonly used Linux AMIs have GUIs installed, and someone who can install X on one probably knows the CLI already.

a lot of the 'development server in a box' type AMIs (like from the AWS marketplace) have cpanel/webmin-type crap.
Post reply on HN