To get the AWS Region where your Lambda Function is running you will need to import the os module.
import os
Then from the os module, you need to get the value of AWS_REGION from the environ mapping variable. This will return the AWS Region where the Lambda Function is running.
runtime_region = os.environ['AWS_REGION']
Note: The way of getting the Runtime AWS Region of your Lambda Function is the same as when you get a Lambda Environment Variable.
If you plan to make the communication of your site visitors to be secure by using HTTPS then you need to use Public SSL/TLS Certificate. You can do this by requesting for a Public Certificate via AWS Certificate Manager (ACM).
Below are the advantages of using Public SSL/TLS Certificate provided by AWS Certificate Manager.
No charges = Free.
Auto renew – No need to worry on expiring SSL/TLS Certificate. ACM Automatically does this for you.
Easy integration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) products such as CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancer, API Gateway and many more.
Check the step-by-step guide on how you can request a Public SSL/TLS Certificate for HTTPS access of your website/domain.
Note: AWS Certificate Manager is a regional service, therefore make sure to be in the correct AWS Region. If you are new to AWS just select N. Virginia (us-east-1) as it is one of the cheapest regions.
On the AWS Certificate Manager page, click on Get started.
On the next screen, make sure to select the Request a public certificate, then click on Request a certificate.
Under Add domain names. Enter the following.
*.[Your Domain] Example: *.chargedneutron.com
The * represents a wildcard. This will allow you to use the SSL Certificate to any subdomains that you want like www.domain.com, images.domain.com, sites.domain.com, mobile.domain.com
[Your Domain] Example: chargedneutron.com
Apex Domain or Naked Domain Name. Your domain name without subdomains. Use this if you do not want to use www in front of your website.
To easily GoDaddy Domains with Amazon Web Services (AWS) products such as Elastic Load Balancers, CloudFront, API Gateway, etc., you will need to associate your domain with AWS Route 53.
Follow the step-by-step tutorial below on how to associate your GoDaddy Domain to Amazon Route 53.
For the purpose of demonstration, I will be using my sample domain name – chargedneutron.com.
After setting up an Active Directory (AD) on our Windows Server it is advisable to have another server to be a Secondary Active Directory Domain Controller to become the failover for Active Directory in case something happens to the first AD Server.
Below is a detailed tutorial on how to properly set up a Secondary Active Directory Domain Controller on Windows Server 2016.
Note
Primaryrefers to the first Windows Server that we setup Active Directory with.
Secondaryrefers to the the Second Windows Server we will set Active Directory. This is what we will setup here.
The very first thing I do after installing Active Directory (AD) on Windows Server is to change the password of my AD Administrator. I do this because I use Amazon Web Services (AWS) EC2 as my servers and AWS automatically generates the password for my Windows Server.
The AD Administrator is a very powerful user for Active Directory as you can restrict or open capabilities to other users and computer, install/uninstall programs and can even shut down any member computer using the Admin user. That is why you should really keep your AD Administrator User password in a safe place.
Whatever the reason you have for wanting to change the password of your AD Administrator below is a step-by-step tutorial on how to change it.
Login to your Windows Server.
Click on the Window Icon on the bottom-left and click on Server Manager.
Click on Toolsthen Active Directory Users and Computers.
Note: You can only do the steps below if you are an Administrator of your Windows Server.
Change the Computer Name
This is an optional step, but I would highly encourage you to do this so that your computer name will not be like EC2AMAZ-3TVT1HF, but a more descriptive one.
In this case since I am going to use the computer that we will setup as an Active Directory Domain Contoller I shall name my Windows Server as DC01.
In fact, you will have a lot of problem if you rename your computer after installing Active Directory. So better do it now before continuing to the next step.
Every time I launch a Windows Server on AWS or Google Cloud it always provides a random Computer Name. As a good practice I always want my computers to be named descriptively.
In this case I would like to update my Windows Server 2016 Computer Name to DC01, which means Domain Controller 01, since I will be using this server for Active Directory.
Below is a step by step guide on how to rename my Windows Computers to a more descriptive name.
My favorite Python connector for MySQL or MariaDB is MySQLdb, the problem with this connector is that it is complicated to install on Windows!
I am creating this article for those who want to install MySQLdb for Python 3 for Windows. Especially me, since each time I am doing a Python project that needs to connect to MariaDB or MySQL I always look on how to install MySQLdb.
Problem: You are running a critical Windows Server on AWS EC2 and the C: drive is almost full (storage volume) but it should zero downtime (No Restart, No Stop then Start). Is this possible on AWS EC2?
Editing configuration values inside the code is a high risk for error since there is a high chance that not only the values that you are changing you will change, you might even delete a letter or edit a line. In order to avoid this risk, you want your code to be able to accept configuration values at run time. This is extremely useful when developing codes on different environments like development, testing and production.
With AWS Lambda you can reuse your code on different environments using the Environment Variables.
