Month: May 2021

aws

AWS Cloud Practitioner Certification

Here is an overview of steps to become an AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner.

1. Download the exam guide

First and foremost, it’s important to understand the syllabus and the format of the exam. The exam guide helpfully spells out the syllabus and the weightage of each domain:

aws-certified-cloud-practitioner_exam-guideDownload

(As downloaded from here in May 2021)

2. Attend an online training course

There are many courses available.

Thankfully there’s a free one by AWS: https://aws.amazon.com/training/digital/aws-cloud-practitioner-essentials/

There’s also a best-selling course from Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/aws-certified-cloud-practitioner-new/

3. Try the sample questions

Download and try the sample questions: https://d1.awsstatic.com/training-and-certification/docs-cloud-practitioner/AWS-Certified-Cloud-Practitioner_Sample-Questions.pdf

It’s a good gauge to see which part of the course we may need to revisit.

4. Schedule the exam

Once we’re good to go, schedule an exam: https://www.aws.training/certification?src=exam-prep

The lead time is very short, like you can get a slot either the next day or the day after, so there is no need to schedule way in advance. However, for some of us, scheduling in advance creates a non-movable goal to work towards.

Likely you’ll be presented with a choice between two different exam vendors PSI and Pearson Vue. It appears that Pearson Vue is the favourite choice in terms of usability.

All the best! 🙂

aws, serverless

Brief steps to install Serverless Framework

1. Install Nodejs.
2. Install Serverless: sudo npm install -g serverless
3. In the AWS console, create a programmatic IAM account that’s granted the AdministratorAccess policy. Save the generated access key and secret.
4. Add a new profile locally: serverless config credentials --provider aws --key <IAM key> --secret <IAM secret> --profile myprofile001

Each profile name is simply used to identify a pair of IAM key and secret locally. Profiles can be arbitrarily named. You can create as many profiles as you wish. The list of local profiles are stored in ~/.aws/credentials.

(A list of complete configuration available in serverless.yml)

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5_FHbdsjRc&list=PLmexTtcbIn_gP8bpsUsHfv-58KsKPsGEo&index=1

aws, git

Setting up AWS CodeCommit for Git

AWS CodeCommit is AWS’s own Git offering. It operates primarily on IAM users, so an important part of setting up CodeCommit is to first create IAM user(s).

  • Login to AWS Console as the root user.
  • Create a new repo at CodeCommit.
  • Create and commit a simple new file, say, README.md.
  • Create an IAM user with two important credentials:
    • AWSCodeCommitPowerUser policy.
    • Enable console access.
    • (Remember to download the generated IAM credentials as CSV)
  • Logout of AWS Console.

Now that the IAM user has been created, the following steps are to be completed by the IAM user instead of the root user.

  • Login as the new IAM user.
  • Browse to IAM->Users->(the new IAM user)->Security Credentials->SSH keys for AWS CodeCommit->Generate.
    • (It is usual to see red permission warnings along the way, no worries)
    • Remember to download the generated CodeCommit credentials as CSV.
  • Still as the IAM user, browse to CodeCommit and locate the correct repo.
  • Copy the HTTPS clone URL.
  • On your local Git client (e.g., GitHub client, VS Code), clone the repo using the copied clone URL.
    • When prompted for username and password, use the set of CodeCommit credentials that was download as CSV. Do not confuse that with the earlier set of IAM credentials.
    • If using git command line, git clone https://git-codecommit.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/v1/repos/MyDemoRepo my-demo-repo
  • And that’s it!