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How to rotate your Twitter API key and bearer token automatically with AWS Secrets Manager

2018-05-31 Apurv Awasthi

Post Syndicated from Apurv Awasthi original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-rotate-your-twitter-api-key-and-bearer-token-automatically-with-aws-secrets-manager/

Previously, I showed you how to rotate Amazon RDS database credentials automatically with AWS Secrets Manager. In addition to database credentials, AWS Secrets Manager makes it easier to rotate, manage, and retrieve API keys, OAuth tokens, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle. You can configure Secrets Manager to rotate these secrets automatically, which can help you meet your compliance needs. You can also use Secrets Manager to rotate secrets on demand, which can help you respond quickly to security events. In this post, I show you how to store an API key in Secrets Manager and use a custom Lambda function to rotate the key automatically. I’ll use a Twitter API key and bearer token as an example; you can reference this example to rotate other types of API keys.

The instructions are divided into four main phases:

Store a Twitter API key and bearer token in Secrets Manager.
Create a custom Lambda function to rotate the bearer token.
Configure your application to retrieve the bearer token from Secrets Manager.
Configure Secrets Manager to use the custom Lambda function to rotate the bearer token automatically.

For the purpose of this post, I use the placeholder Demo/Twitter_Api_Key to denote the API key, the placeholder Demo/Twitter_bearer_token to denote the bearer token, and placeholder Lambda_Rotate_Bearer_Token to denote the custom Lambda function. Be sure to replace these placeholders with the resource names from your account.

Phase 1: Store a Twitter API key and bearer token in Secrets Manager

Twitter enables developers to register their applications and retrieve an API key, which includes a consumer_key and consumer_secret. Developers use these to generate a bearer token that applications can then use to authenticate and retrieve information from Twitter. At any given point of time, you can use an API key to create only one valid bearer token.

Start by storing the API key in Secrets Manager. Here’s how:

Open the Secrets Manager console and select Store a new secret.

Figure 1: The “Store a new secret” button in the AWS Secrets Manager console
Select Other type of secrets (because you’re storing an API key).
Input the consumer_key and consumer_secret, and then select Next.

Figure 2: Select the consumer_key and the consumer_secret
Specify values for Secret Name and Description, then select Next. For this example, I use Demo/Twitter_API_Key.

Figure 3: Set values for “Secret Name” and “Description”
On the next screen, keep the default setting, Disable automatic rotation, because you’ll use the same API key to rotate bearer tokens programmatically and automatically. Applications and employees will not retrieve this API key. Select Next.

Figure 4: Keep the default “Disable automatic rotation” setting
Review the information on the next screen and, if everything looks correct, select Store. You’ve now successfully stored a Twitter API key in Secrets Manager.

Next, store the bearer token in Secrets Manager. Here’s how:

From the Secrets Manager console, select Store a new secret, select Other type of secrets, input details (access_token, token_type, and ARN of the API key) about the bearer token, and then select Next.

Figure 5: Add details about the bearer token
Specify values for Secret Name and Description, and then select Next. For this example, I use Demo/Twitter_bearer_token.

Figure 6: Again set values for “Secret Name” and “Description”
Keep the default rotation setting, Disable automatic rotation, and then select Next. You’ll enable rotation after you’ve updated the application to use Secrets Manager APIs to retrieve secrets.
Review the information and select Store. You’ve now completed storing the bearer token in Secrets Manager.
I take note of the sample code provided on the review page. I’ll use this code to update my application to retrieve the bearer token using Secrets Manager APIs.

Figure 7: The sample code you can use in your app

Phase 2: Create a custom Lambda function to rotate the bearer token

While Secrets Manager supports rotating credentials for databases hosted on Amazon RDS natively, it also enables you to meet your unique rotation-related use cases by authoring custom Lambda functions. Now that you’ve stored the API key and bearer token, you’ll create a Lambda function to rotate the bearer token. For this example, I’ll create my Lambda function using Python 3.6.

Open the Lambda console and select Create function.

Figure 8: In the Lambda console, select “Create function”
Select Author from scratch. For this example, I use the name Lambda_Rotate_Bearer_Token for my Lambda function. I also set the Runtime environment as Python 3.6.

Figure 9: Create a new function from scratch
This Lambda function requires permissions to call AWS resources on your behalf. To grant these permissions, select Create a custom role. This opens a console tab.
Select Create a new IAM Role and specify the value for Role Name. For this example, I use Role_Lambda_Rotate_Twitter_Bearer_Token.

Figure 10: For “IAM Role,” select “Create a new IAM role”

Next, to define the IAM permissions, copy and paste the following IAM policy in the View Policy Document text-entry field. Be sure to replace the placeholder ARN-OF-Demo/Twitter_API_Key with the ARN of your secret.


{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            “Sid”: “AllowLambdaToStoreAndRetrieveSecrets”
"Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "secretsmanager:DescribeSecret",
                "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
                "secretsmanager:PutSecretValue",
                "secretsmanager:UpdateSecretVersionStage"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            “Sid”: “GenerateARandomStringToExecuteRotation”
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "secretsmanager:GetRandomPassword"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            “Sid”: “AccessToNetworkInterface”
            "Action": [
                "ec2:CreateNetworkInterface",
                "ec2:DeleteNetworkInterface",
                "ec2:DescribeNetworkInterfaces",
                "ec2:DetachNetworkInterface"
            ],
            "Resource": "*",
            "Effect": "Allow"
        },
        {
            “Sid”: “RecordProgressInLogsForEasierDebugging”
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "logs:CreateLogGroup",
                "logs:CreateLogStream",
                "logs:PutLogEvents"
            ],
            "Resource": "*"
        },
        {
            “Sid”: “GetMasterCredential”
            "Effect": "Allow",
            "Action": [
                "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue"
            ],
            "Resource": ARN-OF-Demo/Twitter_API_Key
        }
    ]
}

Here’s what it will look like:

Figure 11: The IAM policy pasted in the “View Policy Document” text-entry field

Now, select Allow. This brings me back to the Lambda console with the appropriate Role selected.
Select Create function.

Figure 12: Select the “Create function” button in the lower-right corner

Copy the following Python code and paste it in the Function code section.


import base64
import json
import logging
import os

import boto3
from botocore.vendored import requests

logger = logging.getLogger()
logger.setLevel(logging.INFO)

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    """Secrets Manager Twitter Bearer Token Handler

    This handler uses the master-user rotation scheme to rotate a bearer token of a Twitter app.

    The Secret PlaintextString is expected to be a JSON string with the following format:
    {
        'access_token': ,
        'token_type': ,
        'masterarn': 
    }

    Args:
        event (dict): Lambda dictionary of event parameters. These keys must include the following:
            - SecretId: The secret ARN or identifier
            - ClientRequestToken: The ClientRequestToken of the secret version
            - Step: The rotation step (one of createSecret, setSecret, testSecret, or finishSecret)

        context (LambdaContext): The Lambda runtime information

    Raises:
        ResourceNotFoundException: If the secret with the specified arn and stage does not exist

        ValueError: If the secret is not properly configured for rotation

        KeyError: If the secret json does not contain the expected keys

    """
    arn = event['SecretId']
    token = event['ClientRequestToken']
    step = event['Step']

    # Setup the client and environment variables
    service_client = boto3.client('secretsmanager', endpoint_url=os.environ['SECRETS_MANAGER_ENDPOINT'])
    oauth2_token_url = os.environ['TWITTER_OAUTH2_TOKEN_URL']
    oauth2_invalid_token_url = os.environ['TWITTER_OAUTH2_INVALID_TOKEN_URL']
    tweet_search_url = os.environ['TWITTER_SEARCH_URL']

    # Make sure the version is staged correctly
    metadata = service_client.describe_secret(SecretId=arn)
    if not metadata['RotationEnabled']:
        logger.error("Secret %s is not enabled for rotation" % arn)
        raise ValueError("Secret %s is not enabled for rotation" % arn)
    versions = metadata['VersionIdsToStages']
    if token not in versions:
        logger.error("Secret version %s has no stage for rotation of secret %s." % (token, arn))
        raise ValueError("Secret version %s has no stage for rotation of secret %s." % (token, arn))
    if "AWSCURRENT" in versions[token]:
        logger.info("Secret version %s already set as AWSCURRENT for secret %s." % (token, arn))
        return
    elif "AWSPENDING" not in versions[token]:
        logger.error("Secret version %s not set as AWSPENDING for rotation of secret %s." % (token, arn))
        raise ValueError("Secret version %s not set as AWSPENDING for rotation of secret %s." % (token, arn))

    # Call the appropriate step
    if step == "createSecret":
        create_secret(service_client, arn, token, oauth2_token_url, oauth2_invalid_token_url)

    elif step == "setSecret":
        set_secret(service_client, arn, token, oauth2_token_url)

    elif step == "testSecret":
        test_secret(service_client, arn, token, tweet_search_url)

    elif step == "finishSecret":
        finish_secret(service_client, arn, token)

    else:
        logger.error("lambda_handler: Invalid step parameter %s for secret %s" % (step, arn))
        raise ValueError("Invalid step parameter %s for secret %s" % (step, arn))


def create_secret(service_client, arn, token, oauth2_token_url, oauth2_invalid_token_url):
    """Get a new bearer token from Twitter 

    This method invalidates existing bearer token for the Twitter app and retrieves a new one from Twitter.
    If a secret version with AWSPENDING stage exists, updates it with the newly retrieved bearer token and if 
    the AWSPENDING stage does not exist, creates a new version of the secret with that stage label. 

    Args:
        service_client (client): The secrets manager service client

        arn (string): The secret ARN or other identifier

        token (string): The ClientRequestToken associated with the secret version

        oauth2_token_url (string): The Twitter API endpoint to request a bearer token

        oauth2_invalid_token_url (string): The Twitter API endpoint to invalidate a bearer token

    Raises:
        ValueError: If the current secret is not valid JSON

        KeyError: If the secret json does not contain the expected keys

        ResourceNotFoundException: If the current secret is not found

    """
    # Make sure the current secret exists and try to get the master arn from the secret
    try:
      current_secret_dict = get_secret_dict(service_client, arn, "AWSCURRENT")
      master_arn = current_secret_dict['masterarn']
      logger.info("createSecret: Successfully retrieved secret for %s." % arn)
    except service_client.exceptions.ResourceNotFoundException:
      return
    # create bearer token credentials to be passed as authorization string to Twitter
    bearer_token_credentials = encode_credentials(service_client, master_arn, "AWSCURRENT")
    # get the bearer token from Twitter
    bearer_token_from_twitter = get_bearer_token(bearer_token_credentials,oauth2_token_url)
    # invalidate the current bearer token
    invalidate_bearer_token(oauth2_invalid_token_url,bearer_token_credentials,bearer_token_from_twitter)
    # get a new bearer token from Twitter
    new_bearer_token = get_bearer_token(bearer_token_credentials, oauth2_token_url)
    # if a secret version with AWSPENDING stage exists, update it with the lastest bearer token
    # if the AWSPENDING stage does not exist, then create the version with AWSPENDING stage
    try:
      pending_secret_dict = get_secret_dict(service_client, arn, "AWSPENDING", token)
      pending_secret_dict['access_token'] = new_bearer_token
      service_client.put_secret_value(SecretId=arn, ClientRequestToken=token, SecretString=json.dumps(pending_secret_dict), VersionStages=['AWSPENDING'])
      logger.info("createSecret: Successfully invalidated the bearer token of the secret %s and updated the pending version" % arn)
    except service_client.exceptions.ResourceNotFoundException:
      current_secret_dict['access_token'] = new_bearer_token
      service_client.put_secret_value(SecretId=arn, ClientRequestToken=token, SecretString=json.dumps(current_secret_dict), VersionStages=['AWSPENDING'])
      logger.info("createSecret: Successfully invalidated the bearer token of the secret %s and and created the pending version." % arn)

def set_secret(service_client, arn, token, oauth2_token_url):
    """Validate the pending secret with that in Twitter

    This method checks wether the bearer token in Twitter is the same as the one in the version with AWSPENDING stage.

    Args:
        service_client (client): The secrets manager service client

        arn (string): The secret ARN or other identifier

        token (string): The ClientRequestToken associated with the secret version

        oauth2_token_url (string): The Twitter API endopoint to get a bearer token

    Raises:
        ResourceNotFoundException: If the secret with the specified arn and stage does not exist

        ValueError: If the secret is not valid JSON or master credentials could not be used to login to DB

        KeyError: If the secret json does not contain the expected keys

    """
    # First get the pending version of the bearer token and compare it with that in Twitter
    pending_secret_dict = get_secret_dict(service_client, arn, "AWSPENDING")
    master_arn = pending_secret_dict['masterarn']
    # create bearer token credentials to be passed as authorization string to Twitter
    bearer_token_credentials = encode_credentials(service_client, master_arn, "AWSCURRENT")
    # get the bearer token from Twitter
    bearer_token_from_twitter = get_bearer_token(bearer_token_credentials, oauth2_token_url)
    # if the bearer tokens are same, invalidate the bearer token in Twitter
    # if not, raise an exception that bearer token in Twitter was changed outside Secrets Manager
    if pending_secret_dict['access_token'] == bearer_token_from_twitter:
      logger.info("createSecret: Successfully verified the bearer token of arn %s" % arn)
    else:
      raise ValueError("The bearer token of the Twitter app was changed outside Secrets Manager. Please check.")
    
def test_secret(service_client, arn, token, tweet_search_url):
    """Test the pending secret by calling a Twitter API

    This method tries to use the bearer token in the secret version with AWSPENDING stage and search for tweets
    with 'aws secrets manager' string. 

    Args:
        service_client (client): The secrets manager service client

        arn (string): The secret ARN or other identifier

        token (string): The ClientRequestToken associated with the secret version

    Raises:
        ResourceNotFoundException: If the secret with the specified arn and stage does not exist

        ValueError: If the secret is not valid JSON or pending credentials could not be used to login to the database

        KeyError: If the secret json does not contain the expected keys

    """
    # First get the pending version of the bearer token and compare it with that in Twitter
    pending_secret_dict = get_secret_dict(service_client, arn, "AWSPENDING", token)
    # Now verify you can search for tweets using the bearer token
    if verify_bearer_token(pending_secret_dict['access_token'], tweet_search_url):
        logger.info("testSecret: Successfully authorized with the pending secret in %s." % arn)
        return
    else:
        logger.error("testSecret: Unable to authorize with the pending secret of secret ARN %s" % arn)
        raise ValueError("Unable to connect to Twitter with pending secret of secret ARN %s" % arn)

def finish_secret(service_client, arn, token):
    """Finish the rotation by marking the pending secret as current

    This method moves the secret from the AWSPENDING stage to the AWSCURRENT stage.

    Args:
        service_client (client): The secrets manager service client

        arn (string): The secret ARN or other identifier

        token (string): The ClientRequestToken associated with the secret version

    Raises:
        ResourceNotFoundException: If the secret with the specified arn and stage does not exist

    """
    # First describe the secret to get the current version
    metadata = service_client.describe_secret(SecretId=arn)
    current_version = None
    for version in metadata["VersionIdsToStages"]:
        if "AWSCURRENT" in metadata["VersionIdsToStages"][version]:
            if version == token:
                # The correct version is already marked as current, return
                logger.info("finishSecret: Version %s already marked as AWSCURRENT for %s" % (version, arn))
                return
            current_version = version
            break

    # Finalize by staging the secret version current
    service_client.update_secret_version_stage(SecretId=arn, VersionStage="AWSCURRENT", MoveToVersionId=token, RemoveFromVersionId=current_version)
    logger.info("finishSecret: Successfully set AWSCURRENT stage to version %s for secret %s." % (version, arn))
def encode_credentials(service_client, arn, stage):
  """Encodes the Twitter credentials
  This helper function encodes the Twitter credentials (consumer_key and consumer_secret) 

  Args:
    service_client (client):The secrets manager service client

    arn (string): The secret ARN or other identifier

    stage (stage): The stage identifying the secret version
  
  Returns:
    encoded_credentials (string): base64 encoded authorization string for Twitter

  Raises:
    KeyError: If the secret json does not contain the expected keys
  """
  required_fields = ['consumer_key','consumer_secret']
  master_secret_dict = get_secret_dict(service_client, arn, stage)
  for field in required_fields:
    if field not in master_secret_dict:
      raise KeyError("%s key is missing from the secret JSON" % field)
  encoded_credentials = base64.urlsafe_b64encode(
    '{}:{}'.format(master_secret_dict['consumer_key'], master_secret_dict['consumer_secret']).encode('ascii')).decode('ascii')
  return encoded_credentials
def get_bearer_token(encoded_credentials, oauth2_token_url):
  """Gets a bearer token from Twitter

  This helper function retrieves the current bearer token from Twitter, given a set of credentials.

  Args:
    encoded_credentials (string): Twitter credentials for authentication

    oauth2_token_url (string): REST API endpoint to request a bearer token from Twitter

  Raises:
    KeyError: If the secret json does not contain the expected keys
  """
  headers = {
      'Authorization': 'Basic {}'.format(encoded_credentials),
      'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8',
  }
  data = 'grant_type=client_credentials'
  response = requests.post(oauth2_token_url, headers=headers, data=data)
  response_data = response.json()
  if response_data['token_type'] == 'bearer':
      bearer_token = response_data['access_token']
      return bearer_token
  else:
      raise RuntimeError('unexpected token type: {}'.format(response_data['token_type']))
def invalidate_bearer_token(oauth2_invalid_token_url, bearer_token_credentials, bearer_token):
    """Invalidates a Bearer Token of a Twitter App

    This helper function invalidates a bearer token of a Twitter app. 
    If successful, it returns the invalidated bearer token, else None

    Args:
        oauth2_invalid_token_url (string): The Twitter API endpoint to invalidate a bearer token

        bearer_token_credentials (string): encoded consumer key and consumer secret to authenticate with Twitter

        bearer_token (string): The bearer token to be invalidated

    Returns:
        invalidated_bearer_token: The invalidated bearer token

    Raises:
        ResourceNotFoundException: If the secret with the specified arn and stage does not exist

        ValueError: If the secret is not valid JSON

        KeyError: If the secret json does not contain the expected keys

    """
    headers = {
      'Authorization': 'Basic {}'.format(bearer_token_credentials),
      'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8',
    }
    data = 'access_token=' + bearer_token
    invalidate_response = requests.post(oauth2_invalid_token_url, headers=headers, data=data)
    invalidate_response_data = invalidate_response.json()
    if invalidate_response_data:
      return
    else:
      raise RuntimeError('Invalidate bearer token request failed')
def verify_bearer_token(bearer_token, tweet_search_url):
  """Verifies access to Twitter APIs using a bearer token

  This helper function verifies that the bearer token is valid by calling Twitter's search/tweets API endpoint

  Args:
      bearer_token (string): The current bearer token for the application

  Returns:
      True or False

  Raises:
      KeyError: If the response of search tweets API call fails
  """
  headers = {
    'Authorization' : 'Bearer {}'.format(bearer_token),
    'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded;charset=UTF-8',
  }
  search_results = requests.get(tweet_search_url, headers=headers)
  try:
    search_results.json()['statuses']
    return True
  except:
    return False

def get_secret_dict(service_client, arn, stage, token=None):
    """Gets the secret dictionary corresponding for the secret arn, stage, and token

    This helper function gets credentials for the arn and stage passed in and returns the dictionary by parsing the JSON string

    Args:
        service_client (client): The secrets manager service client

        arn (string): The secret ARN or other identifier

        token (string): The ClientRequestToken associated with the secret version, or None if no validation is desired

        stage (string): The stage identifying the secret version

    Returns:
        SecretDictionary: Secret dictionary

    Raises:
        ResourceNotFoundException: If the secret with the specified arn and stage does not exist

        ValueError: If the secret is not valid JSON

    """
    # Only do VersionId validation against the stage if a token is passed in
    if token:
        secret = service_client.get_secret_value(SecretId=arn, VersionId=token, VersionStage=stage)
    else:
        secret = service_client.get_secret_value(SecretId=arn, VersionStage=stage)
    plaintext = secret['SecretString']

    # Parse and return the secret JSON string
    return json.loads(plaintext)

Here’s what it will look like:

Figure 13: The Python code pasted in the “Function code” section

On the same page, provide the following environment variables:
- SECRETS_MANAGER_ENDPOINT: https://secretsmanager.us-east-2.amazonaws.com
- TWITTER_OAUTH2_INVALID_TOKEN_URL: https://api.twitter.com/oauth2/invalidate_token
- TWITTER_OAUTH2_TOKEN_URL: https://api.twitter.com/oauth2/token
- TWITTER_SEARCH_URL: https://api.twitter.com/1.1/search/tweets.json?q=aws%20secrets%20manager&count=1
Here’s what it will look like:

Figure 14: Add the environment variables
Note: Resources used in this example are in US East (Ohio) region. If you intend to use another AWS Region, change the SECRETS_MANAGER_ENDPOINT set in the Environment variables to the appropriate region.
You’ve now created a Lambda function that can rotate the bearer token:

Figure 15: The new Lambda function
Before you can configure Secrets Manager to use this Lambda function, you need to update the function policy of the Lambda function. A function policy permits AWS services, such as Secrets Manager, to invoke a Lambda function on behalf of your application. You can attach a Lambda function policy from the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) or SDK. To attach a function policy, call the add-permission Lambda API from the AWS CLI.
```
>aws lambda add-permission --function-name Lambda_Rotate_Bearer_Token --principal secretsmanager.amazonaws.com --action lambda:InvokeFunction --statement-id SecretsManagerAccess
```

Phase 3: Configure your application to retrieve the bearer token from Secrets Manager

Now that you’ve stored the bearer token in Secrets Manager, update the application to retrieve the bearer token from Secrets Manager instead of hard-coding this information in a configuration file or source code. For this example, I show you how to configure a Python application to retrieve this secret from Secrets Manager.

Connect to your Amazon EC2 instance via Secure Shell (SSH). Previously, you configured the application to retrieve the bearer token from a configuration file. Below is the source code for my application.


import config

def no_secrets_manager_sample()
    
    # Get the bearer token from a config file. 
    Bearer_token = config.bearer_token
    
    # Use the bearer token to authenticate requests to Twitter

Use the sample code from section titled Phase 1 and update the application to retrieve the bearer token from Secrets Manager. The following code sets up the client and retrieves and decrypts the secret Demo/Twitter_bearer_token.


# Use this code snippet in your app.
import boto3
from botocore.exceptions import ClientError


def get_secret():
    secret_name = "Demo/Twitter_bearer_token"
    endpoint_url = "https://secretsmanager.us-east-2.amazonaws.com"
    region_name = "us-east-2"

    session = boto3.session.Session()
    client = session.client(
        service_name='secretsmanager',
        region_name=region_name,
        endpoint_url=endpoint_url
    )

    try:
        get_secret_value_response = client.get_secret_value(
            SecretId=secret_name
        )
    except ClientError as e:
        if e.response['Error']['Code'] == 'ResourceNotFoundException':
            print("The requested secret " + secret_name + " was not found")
        elif e.response['Error']['Code'] == 'InvalidRequestException':
            print("The request was invalid due to:", e)
        elif e.response['Error']['Code'] == 'InvalidParameterException':
            print("The request had invalid params:", e)
    else:
        # Decrypted secret using the associated KMS CMK
        # Depending on whether the secret was a string or binary, one of these fields will be populated
        if 'SecretString' in get_secret_value_response:
            secret = get_secret_value_response['SecretString']
        else:
            binary_secret_data = get_secret_value_response['SecretBinary']
            
        # Your code goes here.

Applications require permissions to access Secrets Manager. My application runs on Amazon EC2 and uses an IAM role to get access to AWS services. I’ll attach the following policy to my IAM role, and you should take a similar action with your IAM role. This policy uses the GetSecretValue action to grant my application permissions to read secrets from Secrets Manager. This policy also uses the resource element to limit my application to read only the Demo/Twitter_bearer_token secret from Secrets Manager. Read the AWS Secrets Manager documentation to understand the minimum IAM permissions required to retrieve a secret.
```
{
"Version": "2012-10-17",
"Statement": {
"Sid": "RetrieveBearerToken",
"Effect": "Allow",
"Action": "secretsmanager:GetSecretValue",
"Resource": Input ARN of the secret Demo/Twitter_bearer_token here 
}
}
```
Note: To improve the resiliency of your applications, associate your application with two API keys/bearer tokens. This is a higher availability option because you can continue to use one bearer token while Secrets Manager rotates the other token. Read the AWS documentation to learn how AWS Secrets Manager rotates your secrets.

Phase 4: Enable and verify rotation

Now that you’ve stored the secret in Secrets Manager and created a Lambda function to rotate this secret, configure Secrets Manager to rotate the secret Demo/Twitter_bearer_token.

From the Secrets Manager console, go to the list of secrets and choose the secret you created in the first step (in my example, this is named Demo/Twitter_bearer_token).
Scroll to Rotation configuration, and then select Edit rotation.

Figure 16: Select the “Edit rotation” button
To enable rotation, select Enable automatic rotation, and then choose how frequently you want Secrets Manager to rotate this secret. For this example, I set the rotation interval to 30 days. I also choose the rotation Lambda function, Lambda_Rotate_Bearer_Token, from the drop-down list.

Figure 17: “Edit rotation configuration” options

The banner on the next screen confirms that I have successfully configured rotation and the first rotation is in progress, which enables you to verify that rotation is functioning as expected. Secrets Manager will rotate this credential automatically every 30 days.

Figure 18: Confirmation notice

Summary

In this post, I showed you how to configure Secrets Manager to manage and rotate an API key and bearer token used by applications to authenticate and retrieve information from Twitter. You can use the steps described in this blog to manage and rotate other API keys, as well.

Secrets Manager helps you protect access to your applications, services, and IT resources without the upfront investment and on-going maintenance costs of operating your own secrets management infrastructure. To get started, open the Secrets Manager console. To learn more, read the Secrets Manager documentation.

If you have comments about this post, submit them in the Comments section below. If you have questions about anything in this post, start a new thread on the Secrets Manager forum or contact AWS Support.

Want more AWS Security news? Follow us on Twitter.

Simplify Login with Application Load Balancer Built-in Authentication

2018-05-30 Randall Hunt

Post Syndicated from Randall Hunt original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/built-in-authentication-in-alb/

Today I’m excited to announce built-in authentication support in Application Load Balancers (ALB). ALB can now securely authenticate users as they access applications, letting developers eliminate the code they have to write to support authentication and offload the responsibility of authentication from the backend. The team built a great live example where you can try out the authentication functionality.

Identity-based security is a crucial component of modern applications and as customers continue to move mission critical applications into the cloud, developers are asked to write the same authentication code again and again. Enterprises want to use their on-premises identities with their cloud applications. Web developers want to use federated identities from social networks to allow their users to sign-in. ALB’s new authentication action provides authentication through social Identity Providers (IdP) like Google, Facebook, and Amazon through Amazon Cognito. It also natively integrates with any OpenID Connect protocol compliant IdP, providing secure authentication and a single sign-on experience across your applications.

How Does ALB Authentication Work?

Authentication is a complicated topic and our readers may have differing levels of expertise with it. I want to cover a few key concepts to make sure we’re all on the same page. If you’re already an authentication expert and you just want to see how ALB authentication works feel free to skip to the next section!

Authentication verifies identity.
Authorization verifies permissions, the things an identity is allowed to do.
OpenID Connect (OIDC) is a simple identity, or authentication, layer built on top on top of the OAuth 2.0 protocol. The OIDC specification document is pretty well written and worth a casual read.
Identity Providers (IdPs) manage identity information and provide authentication services. ALB supports any OIDC compliant IdP and you can use a service like Amazon Cognito or Auth0 to aggregate different identities from various IdPs like Active Directory, LDAP, Google, Facebook, Amazon, or others deployed in AWS or on premises.

When we get away from the terminology for a bit, all of this boils down to figuring out who a user is and what they’re allowed to do. Doing this securely and efficiently is hard. Traditionally, enterprises have used a protocol called SAML with their IdPs, to provide a single sign-on (SSO) experience for their internal users. SAML is XML heavy and modern applications have started using OIDC with JSON mechanism to share claims. Developers can use SAML in ALB with Amazon Cognito’s SAML support. Web app or mobile developers typically use federated identities via social IdPs like Facebook, Amazon, or Google which, conveniently, are also supported by Amazon Cognito.

ALB Authentication works by defining an authentication action in a listener rule. The ALB’s authentication action will check if a session cookie exists on incoming requests, then check that it’s valid. If the session cookie is set and valid then the ALB will route the request to the target group with X-AMZN-OIDC-* headers set. The headers contain identity information in JSON Web Token (JWT) format, that a backend can use to identify a user. If the session cookie is not set or invalid then ALB will follow the OIDC protocol and issue an HTTP 302 redirect to the identity provider. The protocol is a lot to unpack and is covered more thoroughly in the documentation for those curious.

ALB Authentication Walkthrough

I have a simple Python flask app in an Amazon ECS cluster running in some AWS Fargate containers. The containers are in a target group routed to by an ALB. I want to make sure users of my application are logged in before accessing the authenticated portions of my application. First, I’ll navigate to the ALB in the console and edit the rules.

I want to make sure all access to /account* endpoints is authenticated so I’ll add new rule with a condition to match those endpoints.

Now, I’ll add a new rule and create an Authenticate action in that rule.

I’ll have ALB create a new Amazon Cognito user pool for me by providing some configuration details.

After creating the Amazon Cognito pool, I can make some additional configuration in the advanced settings.

I can change the default cookie name, adjust the timeout, adjust the scope, and choose the action for unauthenticated requests.

I can pick Deny to serve a 401 for all unauthenticated requests or I can pick Allow which will pass through to the application if unauthenticated. This is useful for Single Page Apps (SPAs). For now, I’ll choose Authenticate, which will prompt the IdP, in this case Amazon Cognito, to authenticate the user and reload the existing page.

Now I’ll add a forwarding action for my target group and save the rule.

Over on the Facebook side I just need to add my Amazon Cognito User Pool Domain to the whitelisted OAuth redirect URLs.

I would follow similar steps for other authentication providers.

Now, when I navigate to an authenticated page my Fargate containers receive the originating request with the X-Amzn-Oidc-* headers set by ALB. Using the information in those headers (claims-data, identity, access-token) my application can implement authorization.

All of this was possible without having to write a single line of code to deal with each of the IdPs. However, it’s still important for the implementing applications to verify the signature on the JWT header to ensure the request hasn’t been tampered with.

Additional Resources

Of course everything we’ve seen today is also available in the the API and AWS Command Line Interface (CLI). You can find additional information on the feature in the documentation. This feature is provided at no additional charge.

Be sure to check out the live example as well.

With authentication built-in to ALB, developers can focus on building their applications instead of rebuilding authentication for every application, all the while maintaining the scale, availability, and reliability of ALB. I think this feature is a pretty big deal and I can’t wait to see what customers build with it. Let us know what you think of this feature in the comments or on twitter!

– Randall

Orchestrate Apache Spark applications using AWS Step Functions and Apache Livy

2018-05-25 Tanzir Musabbir

Post Syndicated from Tanzir Musabbir original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/orchestrate-apache-spark-applications-using-aws-step-functions-and-apache-livy/

The adoption of Apache Spark has increased significantly over the past few years, and running Spark-based application pipelines is the new normal. Spark jobs that are in an ETL (extract, transform, and load) pipeline have different requirements—you must handle dependencies in the jobs, maintain order during executions, and run multiple jobs in parallel. In most of these cases, you can use workflow scheduler tools like Apache Oozie, Apache Airflow, and even Cron to fulfill these requirements.

Apache Oozie is a widely used workflow scheduler system for Hadoop-based jobs. However, its limited UI capabilities, lack of integration with other services, and heavy XML dependency might not be suitable for some users. On the other hand, Apache Airflow comes with a lot of neat features, along with powerful UI and monitoring capabilities and integration with several AWS and third-party services. However, with Airflow, you do need to provision and manage the Airflow server. The Cron utility is a powerful job scheduler. But it doesn’t give you much visibility into the job details, and creating a workflow using Cron jobs can be challenging.

What if you have a simple use case, in which you want to run a few Spark jobs in a specific order, but you don’t want to spend time orchestrating those jobs or maintaining a separate application? You can do that today in a serverless fashion using AWS Step Functions. You can create the entire workflow in AWS Step Functions and interact with Spark on Amazon EMR through Apache Livy.

In this post, I walk you through a list of steps to orchestrate a serverless Spark-based ETL pipeline using AWS Step Functions and Apache Livy.

Input data

For the source data for this post, I use the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) trip record data. For a description of the data, see this detailed dictionary of the taxi data. In this example, we’ll work mainly with the following three columns for the Spark jobs.

Column name	Column description
RateCodeID	Represents the rate code in effect at the end of the trip (for example, 1 for standard rate, 2 for JFK airport, 3 for Newark airport, and so on).
FareAmount	Represents the time-and-distance fare calculated by the meter.
TripDistance	Represents the elapsed trip distance in miles reported by the taxi meter.

The trip data is in comma-separated values (CSV) format with the first row as a header. To shorten the Spark execution time, I trimmed the large input data to only 20,000 rows. During the deployment phase, the input file tripdata.csv is stored in Amazon S3 in the <<your-bucket>>/emr-step-functions/input/ folder.

The following image shows a sample of the trip data:

Solution overview

The next few sections describe how Spark jobs are created for this solution, how you can interact with Spark using Apache Livy, and how you can use AWS Step Functions to create orchestrations for these Spark applications.

At a high level, the solution includes the following steps:

Trigger the AWS Step Function state machine by passing the input file path.
The first stage in the state machine triggers an AWS Lambda
The Lambda function interacts with Apache Spark running on Amazon EMR using Apache Livy, and submits a Spark job.
The state machine waits a few seconds before checking the Spark job status.
Based on the job status, the state machine moves to the success or failure state.
Subsequent Spark jobs are submitted using the same approach.
The state machine waits a few seconds for the job to finish.
The job finishes, and the state machine updates with its final status.

Let’s take a look at the Spark application that is used for this solution.

Spark jobs

For this example, I built a Spark jar named spark-taxi.jar. It has two different Spark applications:

MilesPerRateCode – The first job that runs on the Amazon EMR cluster. This job reads the trip data from an input source and computes the total trip distance for each rate code. The output of this job consists of two columns and is stored in Apache Parquet format in the output path.

The following are the expected output columns:

rate_code – Represents the rate code for the trip.
total_distance – Represents the total trip distance for that rate code (for example, sum(trip_distance)).

RateCodeStatus – The second job that runs on the EMR cluster, but only if the first job finishes successfully. This job depends on two different input sets:

csv – The same trip data that is used for the first Spark job.
miles-per-rate – The output of the first job.

This job first reads the tripdata.csv file and aggregates the fare_amount by the rate_code. After this point, you have two different datasets, both aggregated by rate_code. Finally, the job uses the rate_code field to join two datasets and output the entire rate code status in a single CSV file.

The output columns are as follows:

rate_code_id – Represents the rate code type.
total_distance – Derived from first Spark job and represents the total trip distance.
total_fare_amount – A new field that is generated during the second Spark application, representing the total fare amount by the rate code type.

Note that in this case, you don’t need to run two different Spark jobs to generate that output. The goal of setting up the jobs in this way is just to create a dependency between the two jobs and use them within AWS Step Functions.

Both Spark applications take one input argument called rootPath. It’s the S3 location where the Spark job is stored along with input and output data. Here is a sample of the final output:

The next section discusses how you can use Apache Livy to interact with Spark applications that are running on Amazon EMR.

Using Apache Livy to interact with Apache Spark

Apache Livy provides a REST interface to interact with Spark running on an EMR cluster. Livy is included in Amazon EMR release version 5.9.0 and later. In this post, I use Livy to submit Spark jobs and retrieve job status. When Amazon EMR is launched with Livy installed, the EMR master node becomes the endpoint for Livy, and it starts listening on port 8998 by default. Livy provides APIs to interact with Spark.

Let’s look at a couple of examples how you can interact with Spark running on Amazon EMR using Livy.

To list active running jobs, you can execute the following from the EMR master node:

curl localhost:8998/sessions

If you want to do the same from a remote instance, just change localhost to the EMR hostname, as in the following (port 8998 must be open to that remote instance through the security group):

curl http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:8998/sessions

To submit a Spark job through Livy pointing to the application jar in S3, you can do the following:

curl -X POST --data '{"file": "s3://<<bucket-location>/spark.jar", "className": "com.example.SparkApp "]}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:8998/batches

Spark submit through Livy returns a session ID that starts from 0. Using that session ID, you can retrieve the status of the job as shown following:

curl http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:8998/batches/0 | python -m json.tool

Through Spark submit, you can pass multiple arguments for the Spark job and Spark configuration settings. You can also do that using Livy, by passing the S3 path through the args parameter, as shown following:

curl -X POST --data '{"file": "s3://<<bucket-location>>/spark.jar", "className": "com.example.SparkApp", “args”: [“s3://bucket-path”]}' -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:8998/batches

All Apache Livy REST calls return a response as JSON, as shown in the following image:

If you want to pretty-print that JSON response, you can pipe command with Python’s JSON tool as follows:

curl http://ec2-xx-xx-xx-xx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:8998/batches/3 | python -m json.tool

For a detailed list of Livy APIs, see the Apache Livy REST API page. This post uses GET /batches and POST /batches.

In the next section, you create a state machine and orchestrate Spark applications using AWS Step Functions.

Using AWS Step Functions to create a Spark job workflow

AWS Step Functions automatically triggers and tracks each step and retries when it encounters errors. So your application executes in order and as expected every time. To create a Spark job workflow using AWS Step Functions, you first create a Lambda state machine using different types of states to create the entire workflow.

First, you use the Task state—a simple state in AWS Step Functions that performs a single unit of work. You also use the Wait state to delay the state machine from continuing for a specified time. Later, you use the Choice state to add branching logic to a state machine.

The following is a quick summary of how to use different states in the state machine to create the Spark ETL pipeline:

Task state – Invokes a Lambda function. The first Task state submits the Spark job on Amazon EMR, and the next Task state is used to retrieve the previous Spark job status.
Wait state – Pauses the state machine until a job completes execution.
Choice state – Each Spark job execution can return a failure, an error, or a success state So, in the state machine, you use the Choice state to create a rule that specifies the next action or step based on the success or failure of the previous step.

Here is one of my Task states, MilesPerRateCode, which simply submits a Spark job:

"MilesPerRate Job": {
      "Type": "Task",
      "Resource":"arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:xxxxxx:function:blog-miles-per-rate-job-submit-function",
      "ResultPath": "$.jobId",
      "Next": "Wait for MilesPerRate job to complete"
 }

This Task state configuration specifies the Lambda function to execute. Inside the Lambda function, it submits a Spark job through Livy using Livy’s POST API. Using ResultPath, it tells the state machine where to place the result of the executing task. As discussed in the previous section, Spark submit returns the session ID, which is captured with $.jobId and used in a later state.

The following code section shows the Lambda function, which is used to submit the MilesPerRateCode job. It uses the Python request library to submit a POST against the Livy endpoint hosted on Amazon EMR and passes the required parameters in JSON format through payload. It then parses the response, grabs id from the response, and returns it. The Next field tells the state machine which state to go to next.

from botocore.vendored import requests
import json

def lambda_handler(event, context):
  headers = { "content-type": "application/json" }
  url = 'http://xxxxxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:8998/batches'
  payload = {
    'file' : 's3://<<s3-location>>/emr-step-functions/spark-taxi.jar',
    'className' : 'com.example.MilesPerRateCode',
    'args' : [event.get('rootPath')]
  }
  res = requests.post(url, data = json.dumps(payload), headers = headers, verify = False)
  json_data = json.loads(res.text)
  return json_data.get('id')

Just like in the MilesPerRate job, another state submits the RateCodeStatus job, but it executes only when all previous jobs have completed successfully.

Here is the Task state in the state machine that checks the Spark job status:

"Query RateCodeStatus job status": {
   "Type": "Task",
   "Resource": "arn:aws:lambda:us-east-1:xxxxx:function:blog-spark-job-status-function",
   "Next": "RateCodeStatus job complete?",
   "ResultPath": "$.jobStatus"
}

Just like other states, the preceding Task executes a Lambda function, captures the result (represented by jobStatus), and passes it to the next state. The following is the Lambda function that checks the Spark job status based on a given session ID:

from botocore.vendored import requests
import json

def lambda_handler(event, context):
    jobid = event.get('jobId')
    url     = 'http://xxxx.compute-1.amazonaws.com:8998/batches/' + str(jobid)
    res = requests.get(url)
    json_data = json.loads(res.text)
    return json_data.get('state')

In the Choice state, it checks the Spark job status value, compares it with a predefined state status, and transitions the state based on the result. For example, if the status is success, move to the next state (RateCodeJobStatus job), and if it is dead, move to the MilesPerRate job failed state.

"MilesPerRate job complete?": {
   "Type": "Choice",
   "Choices": [{
       "Variable": "$.jobStatus",
       "StringEquals": "success",
       "Next": "RateCodeStatus Job"
   },{
       "Variable": "$.jobStatus",
       "StringEquals": "dead",
       "Next": "MilesPerRate job failed"
   }],
   "Default": "Wait for MilesPerRate job to complete"
}

Walkthrough using AWS CloudFormation

To set up this entire solution, you need to create a few AWS resources. To make it easier, I have created an AWS CloudFormation template. This template creates all the required AWS resources and configures all the resources that are needed to create a Spark-based ETL pipeline on AWS Step Functions.

This CloudFormation template requires you to pass the following four parameters during initiation.

Parameter	Description
`ClusterSubnetID`	The subnet where the Amazon EMR cluster is deployed and Lambda is configured to talk to this subnet.
`KeyName`	The name of the existing EC2 key pair to access the Amazon EMR cluster.
`VPCID`	The ID of the virtual private cloud (VPC) where the EMR cluster is deployed and Lambda is configured to talk to this VPC.
`S3RootPath`	The Amazon S3 path where all required files (input file, Spark job, and so on) are stored and the resulting data is written.

IMPORTANT: These templates are designed only to show how you can create a Spark-based ETL pipeline on AWS Step Functions using Apache Livy. They are not intended for production use without modification. And if you try this solution outside of the us-east-1 Region, download the necessary files from s3://aws-data-analytics-blog/emr-step-functions, upload the files to the buckets in your Region, edit the script as appropriate, and then run it.

To launch the CloudFormation stack, choose Launch Stack:

Launching this stack creates the following list of AWS resources.

Logical ID	Resource Type	Description
`StepFunctionsStateExecutionRole`	IAM role	IAM role to execute the state machine and have a trust relationship with the states service.
`SparkETLStateMachine`	AWS Step Functions state machine	State machine in AWS Step Functions for the Spark ETL workflow.
`LambdaSecurityGroup`	Amazon EC2 security group	Security group that is used for the Lambda function to call the Livy API.
`RateCodeStatusJobSubmitFunction`	AWS Lambda function	Lambda function to submit the RateCodeStatus job.
`MilesPerRateJobSubmitFunction`	AWS Lambda function	Lambda function to submit the MilesPerRate job.
`SparkJobStatusFunction`	AWS Lambda function	Lambda function to check the Spark job status.
`LambdaStateMachineRole`	IAM role	IAM role for all Lambda functions to use the lambda trust relationship.
`EMRCluster`	Amazon EMR cluster	EMR cluster where Livy is running and where the job is placed.

During the AWS CloudFormation deployment phase, it sets up S3 paths for input and output. Input files are stored in the <<s3-root-path>>/emr-step-functions/input/ path, whereas spark-taxi.jar is copied under <<s3-root-path>>/emr-step-functions/.

The following screenshot shows how the S3 paths are configured after deployment. In this example, I passed a bucket that I created in the AWS account s3://tm-app-demos for the S3 root path.

If the CloudFormation template completed successfully, you will see Spark-ETL-State-Machine in the AWS Step Functions dashboard, as follows:

Choose the Spark-ETL-State-Machine state machine to take a look at this implementation. The AWS CloudFormation template built the entire state machine along with its dependent Lambda functions, which are now ready to be executed.

On the dashboard, choose the newly created state machine, and then choose New execution to initiate the state machine. It asks you to pass input in JSON format. This input goes to the first state MilesPerRate Job, which eventually executes the Lambda function blog-miles-per-rate-job-submit-function.

Pass the S3 root path as input:

{

“rootPath”: “s3://tm-app-demos”

}

Then choose Start Execution:

The rootPath value is the same value that was passed when creating the CloudFormation stack. It can be an S3 bucket location or a bucket with prefixes, but it should be the same value that is used for AWS CloudFormation. This value tells the state machine where it can find the Spark jar and input file, and where it will write output files. After the state machine starts, each state/task is executed based on its definition in the state machine.

At a high level, the following represents the flow of events:

Execute the first Spark job, MilesPerRate.
The Spark job reads the input file from the location <<rootPath>>/emr-step-functions/input/tripdata.csv. If the job finishes successfully, it writes the output data to <<rootPath>>/emr-step-functions/miles-per-rate.
If the Spark job fails, it transitions to the error state MilesPerRate job failed, and the state machine stops. If the Spark job finishes successfully, it transitions to the RateCodeStatus Job state, and the second Spark job is executed.
If the second Spark job fails, it transitions to the error state RateCodeStatus job failed, and the state machine stops with the Failed status.
If this Spark job completes successfully, it writes the final output data to the <<rootPath>>/emr-step-functions/rate-code-status/ It also transitions the RateCodeStatus job finished state, and the state machine ends its execution with the Success status.

This following screenshot shows a successfully completed Spark ETL state machine:

The right side of the state machine diagram shows the details of individual states with their input and output.

When you execute the state machine for the second time, it fails because the S3 path already exists. The state machine turns red and stops at MilePerRate job failed. The following image represents that failed execution of the state machine:

You can also check your Spark application status and logs by going to the Amazon EMR console and viewing the Application history tab:

I hope this walkthrough paints a picture of how you can create a serverless solution for orchestrating Spark jobs on Amazon EMR using AWS Step Functions and Apache Livy. In the next section, I share some ideas for making this solution even more elegant.

Next steps

The goal of this post is to show a simple example that uses AWS Step Functions to create an orchestration for Spark-based jobs in a serverless fashion. To make this solution robust and production ready, you can explore the following options:

In this example, I manually initiated the state machine by passing the rootPath as input. You can instead trigger the state machine automatically. To run the ETL pipeline as soon as the files arrive in your S3 bucket, you can pass the new file path to the state machine. Because CloudWatch Events supports AWS Step Functions as a target, you can create a CloudWatch rule for an S3 event. You can then set AWS Step Functions as a target and pass the new file path to your state machine. You’re all set!
You can also improve this solution by adding an alerting mechanism in case of failures. To do this, create a Lambda function that sends an alert email and assigns that Lambda function to a Fail That way, when any part of your state fails, it triggers an email and notifies the user.
If you want to submit multiple Spark jobs in parallel, you can use the Parallel state type in AWS Step Functions. The Parallel state is used to create parallel branches of execution in your state machine.

With Lambda and AWS Step Functions, you can create a very robust serverless orchestration for your big data workload.

Cleaning up

When you’ve finished testing this solution, remember to clean up all those AWS resources that you created using AWS CloudFormation. Use the AWS CloudFormation console or AWS CLI to delete the stack named Blog-Spark-ETL-Step-Functions.

Summary

In this post, I showed you how to use AWS Step Functions to orchestrate your Spark jobs that are running on Amazon EMR. You used Apache Livy to submit jobs to Spark from a Lambda function and created a workflow for your Spark jobs, maintaining a specific order for job execution and triggering different AWS events based on your job’s outcome.
Go ahead—give this solution a try, and share your experience with us!

Additional Reading

If you found this post useful, be sure to check out Building a Real World Evidence Platform on AWS and Building High-Throughput Genomics Batch Workflows on AWS: Workflow Layer (Part 4 of 4).

About the Author

Tanzir Musabbir is an EMR Specialist Solutions Architect with AWS. He is an early adopter of open source Big Data technologies. At AWS, he works with our customers to provide them architectural guidance for running analytics solutions on Amazon EMR, Amazon Athena & AWS Glue. Tanzir is a big Real Madrid fan and he loves to travel in his free time.

Protecting your API using Amazon API Gateway and AWS WAF — Part I

2018-05-25 Chris Munns

Post Syndicated from Chris Munns original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/protecting-your-api-using-amazon-api-gateway-and-aws-waf-part-i/

This post courtesy of Thiago Morais, AWS Solutions Architect

When you build web applications or expose any data externally, you probably look for a platform where you can build highly scalable, secure, and robust REST APIs. As APIs are publicly exposed, there are a number of best practices for providing a secure mechanism to consumers using your API.

Amazon API Gateway handles all the tasks involved in accepting and processing up to hundreds of thousands of concurrent API calls, including traffic management, authorization and access control, monitoring, and API version management.

In this post, I show you how to take advantage of the regional API endpoint feature in API Gateway, so that you can create your own Amazon CloudFront distribution and secure your API using AWS WAF.

AWS WAF is a web application firewall that helps protect your web applications from common web exploits that could affect application availability, compromise security, or consume excessive resources.

As you make your APIs publicly available, you are exposed to attackers trying to exploit your services in several ways. The AWS security team published a whitepaper solution using AWS WAF, How to Mitigate OWASP’s Top 10 Web Application Vulnerabilities.

Regional API endpoints

Edge-optimized APIs are endpoints that are accessed through a CloudFront distribution created and managed by API Gateway. Before the launch of regional API endpoints, this was the default option when creating APIs using API Gateway. It primarily helped to reduce latency for API consumers that were located in different geographical locations than your API.

When API requests predominantly originate from an Amazon EC2 instance or other services within the same AWS Region as the API is deployed, a regional API endpoint typically lowers the latency of connections. It is recommended for such scenarios.

For better control around caching strategies, customers can use their own CloudFront distribution for regional APIs. They also have the ability to use AWS WAF protection, as I describe in this post.

Edge-optimized API endpoint

The following diagram is an illustrated example of the edge-optimized API endpoint where your API clients access your API through a CloudFront distribution created and managed by API Gateway.

Regional API endpoint

For the regional API endpoint, your customers access your API from the same Region in which your REST API is deployed. This helps you to reduce request latency and particularly allows you to add your own content delivery network, as needed.

Walkthrough

In this section, you implement the following steps:

Create a regional API using the PetStore sample API.
Create a CloudFront distribution for the API.
Test the CloudFront distribution.
Set up AWS WAF and create a web ACL.
Attach the web ACL to the CloudFront distribution.
Test AWS WAF protection.

Create the regional API

For this walkthrough, use an existing PetStore API. All new APIs launch by default as the regional endpoint type. To change the endpoint type for your existing API, choose the cog icon on the top right corner:

After you have created the PetStore API on your account, deploy a stage called “prod” for the PetStore API.

On the API Gateway console, select the PetStore API and choose Actions, Deploy API.

For Stage name, type prod and add a stage description.

Choose Deploy and the new API stage is created.

Use the following AWS CLI command to update your API from edge-optimized to regional:

aws apigateway update-rest-api \
--rest-api-id {rest-api-id} \
--patch-operations op=replace,path=/endpointConfiguration/types/EDGE,value=REGIONAL

A successful response looks like the following:

{
    "description": "Your first API with Amazon API Gateway. This is a sample API that integrates via HTTP with your demo Pet Store endpoints", 
    "createdDate": 1511525626, 
    "endpointConfiguration": {
        "types": [
            "REGIONAL"
        ]
    }, 
    "id": "{api-id}", 
    "name": "PetStore"
}

After you change your API endpoint to regional, you can now assign your own CloudFront distribution to this API.

Create a CloudFront distribution

To make things easier, I have provided an AWS CloudFormation template to deploy a CloudFront distribution pointing to the API that you just created. Click the button to deploy the template in the us-east-1 Region.

For Stack name, enter RegionalAPI. For APIGWEndpoint, enter your API FQDN in the following format:

{api-id}.execute-api.us-east-1.amazonaws.com

After you fill out the parameters, choose Next to continue the stack deployment. It takes a couple of minutes to finish the deployment. After it finishes, the Output tab lists the following items:

A CloudFront domain URL
An S3 bucket for CloudFront access logs

Output from CloudFormation

Test the CloudFront distribution

To see if the CloudFront distribution was configured correctly, use a web browser and enter the URL from your distribution, with the following parameters:

https://{your-distribution-url}.cloudfront.net/{api-stage}/pets

You should get the following output:

[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "type": "dog",
    "price": 249.99
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "type": "cat",
    "price": 124.99
  },
  {
    "id": 3,
    "type": "fish",
    "price": 0.99
  }
]

Set up AWS WAF and create a web ACL

With the new CloudFront distribution in place, you can now start setting up AWS WAF to protect your API.

For this demo, you deploy the AWS WAF Security Automations solution, which provides fine-grained control over the requests attempting to access your API.

For more information about deployment, see Automated Deployment. If you prefer, you can launch the solution directly into your account using the following button.

For CloudFront Access Log Bucket Name, add the name of the bucket created during the deployment of the CloudFormation stack for your CloudFront distribution.

The solution allows you to adjust thresholds and also choose which automations to enable to protect your API. After you finish configuring these settings, choose Next.

To start the deployment process in your account, follow the creation wizard and choose Create. It takes a few minutes do finish the deployment. You can follow the creation process through the CloudFormation console.

After the deployment finishes, you can see the new web ACL deployed on the AWS WAF console, AWSWAFSecurityAutomations.

Attach the AWS WAF web ACL to the CloudFront distribution

With the solution deployed, you can now attach the AWS WAF web ACL to the CloudFront distribution that you created earlier.

To assign the newly created AWS WAF web ACL, go back to your CloudFront distribution. After you open your distribution for editing, choose General, Edit.

Select the new AWS WAF web ACL that you created earlier, AWSWAFSecurityAutomations.

Save the changes to your CloudFront distribution and wait for the deployment to finish.

Test AWS WAF protection

To validate the AWS WAF Web ACL setup, use Artillery to load test your API and see AWS WAF in action.

To install Artillery on your machine, run the following command:

$ npm install -g artillery

After the installation completes, you can check if Artillery installed successfully by running the following command:

$ artillery -V
$ 1.6.0-12

As the time of publication, Artillery is on version 1.6.0-12.

One of the WAF web ACL rules that you have set up is a rate-based rule. By default, it is set up to block any requesters that exceed 2000 requests under 5 minutes. Try this out.

First, use cURL to query your distribution and see the API output:

$ curl -s https://{distribution-name}.cloudfront.net/prod/pets
[
  {
    "id": 1,
    "type": "dog",
    "price": 249.99
  },
  {
    "id": 2,
    "type": "cat",
    "price": 124.99
  },
  {
    "id": 3,
    "type": "fish",
    "price": 0.99
  }
]

Based on the test above, the result looks good. But what if you max out the 2000 requests in under 5 minutes?

Run the following Artillery command:

artillery quick -n 2000 --count 10  https://{distribution-name}.cloudfront.net/prod/pets

What you are doing is firing 2000 requests to your API from 10 concurrent users. For brevity, I am not posting the Artillery output here.

After Artillery finishes its execution, try to run the cURL request again and see what happens:

$ curl -s https://{distribution-name}.cloudfront.net/prod/pets

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<HTML><HEAD><META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<TITLE>ERROR: The request could not be satisfied</TITLE>
</HEAD><BODY>
<H1>ERROR</H1>
<H2>The request could not be satisfied.</H2>
<HR noshade size="1px">
Request blocked.
<BR clear="all">
<HR noshade size="1px">
<PRE>
Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
Request ID: [removed]
</PRE>
<ADDRESS>
</ADDRESS>
</BODY></HTML>

As you can see from the output above, the request was blocked by AWS WAF. Your IP address is removed from the blocked list after it falls below the request limit rate.

Conclusion

In this first part, you saw how to use the new API Gateway regional API endpoint together with Amazon CloudFront and AWS WAF to secure your API from a series of attacks.

In the second part, I will demonstrate some other techniques to protect your API using API keys and Amazon CloudFront custom headers.

Integrating JFrog Artifactory with AWS CodePipeline

2018-05-24 Erin McGill

Post Syndicated from Erin McGill original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/integrating-jfrog-artifactory-with-aws-codepipeline/

When I talk with customers and partners, I find that they are in different stages in the adoption of DevOps methodologies. They are automating the creation of application artifacts and the deployment of their applications to different infrastructure environments. In many cases, they are creating and supporting multiple applications using a variety of coding languages and artifacts.

The management of these processes and artifacts can be challenging, but using the right tools and methodologies can simplify the process.

In this post, I will show you how you can automate the creation and storage of application artifacts through the implementation of a pipeline and custom deploy action in AWS CodePipeline. The example includes a Node.js code base stored in an AWS CodeCommit repository. A Node Package Manager (npm) artifact is built from the code base, and the build artifact is published to a JFrog Artifactory npm repository.

I frequently recommend AWS CodePipeline, the AWS continuous integration and continuous delivery tool. You can use it to quickly innovate through integration and deployment of new features and bug fixes by building a workflow that automates the build, test, and deployment of new versions of your application. And, because AWS CodePipeline is extensible, it allows you to create a custom action that performs customized, automated actions on your behalf.

JFrog’s Artifactory is a universal binary repository manager where you can manage multiple applications, their dependencies, and versions in one place. Artifactory also enables you to standardize the way you manage your package types across all applications developed in your company, no matter the code base or artifact type.

If you already have a Node.js CodeCommit repository, a JFrog Artifactory host, and would like to automate the creation of the pipeline, including the custom action and CodeBuild project, you can use this AWS CloudFormation template to create your AWS CloudFormation stack.

The project code can be found in this GitHub repository: https://github.com/aws-samples/aws-codepipeline-custom-job-worker-for-jfrog-artifactory.

The AWS CodePipeline workflow

This figure shows the path defined in the pipeline for this project. It starts with a change to Node.js source code committed to a private code repository in AWS CodeCommit. With this change, CodePipeline triggers AWS CodeBuild to create the npm package from the node.js source code. After the build, CodePipeline triggers the custom action job worker to commit the build artifact to the designated artifact repository in Artifactory.

This blog post assumes you have already:

· Created a CodeCommit repository that contains a Node.js project.

· Configured a two-stage pipeline in AWS CodePipeline.

The Source stage of the pipeline is configured to poll the Node.js CodeCommit repository. The Build stage is configured to use a CodeBuild project to build the npm package using a buildspec.yml file located in the code repository.

If you do not have a Node.js repository, you can create a CodeCommit repository that contains this simple ‘Hello World’ project. This project also includes a buildspec.yml file that is used when you define your CodeBuild project. It defines the steps to be taken by CodeBuild to create the npm artifact.

If you do not already have a pipeline set up in CodePipeline, you can use this template to create a pipeline with a CodeCommit source action and a CodeBuild build action through the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI). If you do not want to install the AWS CLI on your local machine, you can use AWS Cloud9, our managed integrated development environment (IDE), to interact with AWS APIs.

In your development environment, open your favorite editor and fill out the template with values appropriate to your project. For information, see the readme in the GitHub repository.

Use this CLI command to create the pipeline from the template:

aws codepipeline create-pipeline --cli-input-json file://source-build-actions-codepipeline.json --region 'us-west-2'

It creates a pipeline that has a CodeCommit source action and a CodeBuild build action.

Integrating JFrog Artifactory

JFrog Artifactory provides default repositories for your project needs. For my NPM package repository, I am using the default virtual npm repository (named npm) that is available in Artifactory Pro. You might want to consider creating a repository per project but for the example used in this post, using the default lets me get started without having to configure a new repository.

I can use the steps in the Set Me Up -> npm section on the landing page to configure my worker to interact with the default NPM repository.

Custom actions in AWS CodePipeline

A custom action in AWS CodePipeline contains:

· custom action definition

Describes the required values to run the custom action. I will define my custom action in the ‘Deploy’ category, identify the provider as ‘Artifactory’, of version ‘1’, and specify a variety of configurationProperties whose values will be defined when this stage is added to my pipeline.

· custom action job worker

Polls CodePipeline for a job, scanning for its action-definition properties. In this blog post, after a job has been found, the job worker does the work required to publish the npm artifact to the Artifactory repository.

My custom action definition in JSON:

{
    "category": "Deploy",
    "configurationProperties": [{
        "name": "TypeOfArtifact",
        "required": true,
        "key": true,
        "secret": false,
        "description": "Package type, ex. npm for node packages",
        "type": "String"
    },
    {   "name": "RepoKey",
        "required": true,
        "key": true,
	"secret": false,
	"type": "String",
	"description": "Name of the repository in which this artifact should be stored"
    },
    {   "name": "UserName",
        "required": true,
        "key": true,
	"secret": false,
	"type": "String",
	"description": "Username for authenticating with the repository"
    },
    {   "name": "Password",
        "required": true,
        "key": true,
	"secret": true,
	"type": "String",
	"description": "Password for authenticating with the repository"
    },
    {   "name": "EmailAddress",
        "required": true,
        "key": true,
	"secret": false,
	"type": "String",
	"description": "Email address used to authenticate with the repository"
    },
    {   "name": "ArtifactoryHost",
        "required": true,
        "key": true,
	"secret": false,
	"type": "String",
	"description": "Public address of Artifactory host, ex: https://myexamplehost.com or http://myexamplehost.com:8080"
    }],
    "provider": "Artifactory",
    "version": "1",
    "settings": {
        "entityUrlTemplate": "{Config:ArtifactoryHost}/artifactory/webapp/#/artifacts/browse/tree/General/{Config:RepoKey}"
    },
    "inputArtifactDetails": {
        "maximumCount": 5,
        "minimumCount": 1
    },
    "outputArtifactDetails": {
        "maximumCount": 5,
        "minimumCount": 0
    }
}

There are seven sections to the custom action definition:

category: This is the stage in which you will be creating this action. It can be Source, Build, Deploy, Test, Invoke, Approval. Except for source actions, the category section simply allows us to organize our actions. I am setting the category for my action as ‘Deploy’ because I’m using it to publish my node artifact to my Artifactory instance.
configurationProperties: These are the parameters or variables required for your project to authenticate and commit your artifact. In the case of my custom worker, I need:
- TypeOfArtifact: In this case, npm, because it’s for the Node Package Manager.
- RepoKey: The name of the repository. In this case, it’s the default npm.
- UserName and Password for the user to authenticate with the Artifactory repository.
- EmailAddress used to authenticate with the repository.
- Artifactory host name or IP address.
provider: The name you define for your custom action stage. I have named the provider Artifactory.
version: Version number for the custom action. Because this is the first version, I set the version number to 1.
entityUrlTemplate: This URL is presented to your users for the deploy stage along with the title you define in your provider. The link takes the user to their artifact repository page in the Artifactory host.
inputArtifactDetails: The number of artifacts to expect from the previous stage in the pipeline.
outputArtifactDetails: The number of artifacts that should be the result from the custom action stage. Later in this blog post, I define 0 for my output artifacts because I am publishing the artifact to the Artifactory repository as the final action.

After I define the custom action in a JSON file, I use the AWS CLI to create the custom action type in CodePipeline:

aws codepipeline create-custom-action-type --cli-input-json file://artifactory_custom_action_deploy_npm.json --region='us-west-2'

After I create the custom action type in the same region as my pipeline, I edit the pipeline to add a Deploy stage and configure it to use the custom action I created for Artifactory:

I have created a custom worker for the actions required to commit the npm artifact to the Artifactory repository. The worker is in Python and it runs in a loop on an Amazon EC2 instance. My custom worker polls for a deploy job and publishes the NPM artifact to the Artifactory repository.

The EC2 instance is running Amazon Linux and has an IAM instance role attached that gives the worker permission to access CodePipeline. The worker process is as follows:

Take the configuration properties from the custom worker and poll CodePipeline for a custom action job.
After there is a job in the job queue with the appropriate category, provider, and version, acknowledge the job.
Download the zipped artifact created in the previous Build stage from the provided S3 buckets with the provided temporary credentials.
Unzip the artifact into a temporary directory.
A user-defined Artifactory user name and password is used to receive a temporary API key from Artifactory.
To avoid having to write the password to a file, use that temporary API key and user name to authenticate with the NPM repository.
Publish the Node.js package to the specified repository.

Because I am running my custom worker on an Amazon Linux EC2 instance, I installed npm with the following command:

sudo yum install nodejs npm --enablerepo=epel

For my custom worker, I used pip to install the required Python libraries:

pip install boto3 requests

For a full Python package list, see requirements.txt in the GitHub repository.

Let’s take a look at some of the code snippets from the worker.

First, the worker polls for jobs:

def action_type():
    ActionType = {
        'category': 'Deploy',
        'owner': 'Custom',
        'provider': 'Artifactory',
        'version': '1' }
    return(ActionType)

def poll_for_jobs():
    try:
        artifactory_action_type = action_type()
        print(artifactory_action_type)
        jobs = codepipeline.poll_for_jobs(actionTypeId=artifactory_action_type)
        while not jobs['jobs']:
            time.sleep(10)
            jobs = codepipeline.poll_for_jobs(actionTypeId=artifactory_action_type)
            if jobs['jobs']:
                print('Job found')
        return jobs['jobs'][0]
    except ClientError as e:
        print("Received an error: %s" % str(e))
        raise

When there is a job in the queue, the poller returns a number of values from the queue such as jobId, the input and output S3 buckets for artifacts, temporary credentials to access the S3 buckets, and other configuration details from the stage in the pipeline.

Here is an example of the return response:

{
	'jobs': [
		{
			'nonce': '3',
			'data': {
				'inputArtifacts': [
					{
						'name': 'Output',
						'location': {
							'type': 'S3',
							's3Location': {
								'objectKey': 'ArtifactoryNPMwithCo/Output/Key,
							'bucketName': '123456789012-codepipelineartifact-us-west-2'
							}
						}
					}
				],
				'pipelineContext': {
						'action': {
							'name': 'Deploy'
						},
						'pipelineName': 'ArtifactoryNPMwithCodeDeploy',
						'stage': {
							'name': 'Deploy'
						}
				},
				'actionTypeId': {
					'category': 'Deploy',
					'owner': 'Custom',
					'version': '1',
					'provider': 'Artifactory'
				},
				'outputArtifacts': [
					{
						'name': 'ArtifactoryOut',
						'location': {
							'type': 'S3',
							's3Location': {
								'objectKey': 'ArtifactoryNPMwithCo/Artifactor/Key,
								'bucketName': '123456789012-codepipelineartifact-us-west-2'
							}
						}
					}
				],
				'actionConfiguration': {
					'configuration': {
						'UserName': 'admin',
						'ArtifactoryHost': 'https://artifactory.myexamplehost.com',
						'Password': 'xxx',
						'EmailAddress': '[email protected]',
						'TypeOfArtifact': 'npm',
						'RepoKey': 'npm'
					}
				},
				'artifactCredentials': {
					'secretAccessKey': 'SECRET',
			               'sessionToken':‘FQoDYXdz...XdndMF',
					'accessKeyId': 'ACCESSKEY'
					}
				},
				'id': 'a0eb',
				'accountId': '123456789012
			}
		],
		'ResponseMetadata': {
			'RetryAttempts': 0,
			'HTTPStatusCode': 200,
			'RequestId': a88b-cdbd5d08b9de',
			'HTTPHeaders': {
				'x-amzn-requestid': '77343c2d-eff4’,
				'content-length': '2461',
				'content-type': 'application/x-amz-json-1.1'
			}
		}
}

After successfully receiving the job details, the worker sends an acknowledgement to CodePipeline to ensure that the work on the job is not duplicated by other workers watching for the same job:

def job_acknowledge(jobId, nonce):
    try:
        print('Acknowledging job')
        result = codepipeline.acknowledge_job(jobId=jobId, nonce=nonce)
        return result
    except Exception as e:
        print("Received an error when trying to acknowledge the job: %s" % str(e))
        raise

With the job now acknowledged, the worker publishes the source code artifact into the desired repository. The worker gets the value of the artifact S3 bucket and objectKey from the inputArtifacts in the response from the poll_for_jobs API request. Next, the worker creates a new directory in /tmp and downloads the S3 object into this directory:

def get_bucket_location(bucketName, init_client):
    region = init_client.get_bucket_location(Bucket=bucketName)['LocationConstraint']
    if not region:
        region = 'us-east-1'
    return region


def get_s3_artifact(bucketName, objectKey, ak, sk, st):
    init_s3 = boto3.client('s3')
    region = get_bucket_location(bucketName, init_s3)
    session = Session(aws_access_key_id=ak,
                      aws_secret_access_key=sk,
                      aws_session_token=st)

    s3 = session.resource('s3',
                          region_name=region,
                          config=botocore.client.Config(signature_version='s3v4'))
    try:
        tempdirname = tempfile.mkdtemp()
    except OSError as e:
        print('Could not write temp directory %s' % tempdirname)
        raise
    bucket = s3.Bucket(bucketName)
    obj = bucket.Object(objectKey)
    filename = tempdirname + '/' + objectKey
    try:
        if os.path.dirname(objectKey):
            directory = os.path.dirname(filename)
            os.makedirs(directory)
        print('Downloading the %s object and writing it to disk in %s location' % (objectKey, tempdirname))
        with open(filename, 'wb') as data:
            obj.download_fileobj(data)
    except ClientError as e:
        print('Downloading the object and writing the file to disk raised this error: ' + str(e))
        raise
    return(filename, tempdirname)

Because the downloaded artifact from S3 is a zip file, the worker must unzip it first. To have a clean area in which to work, I extract the downloaded zip archive into a new directory:

def unzip_codepipeline_artifact(artifact, origtmpdir):
    # create a new temp directory
    # Unzip artifact into new directory
    try:
        newtempdir = tempfile.mkdtemp()
        print('Extracting artifact %s into temporary directory %s' % (artifact, newtempdir))
        zip_ref = zipfile.ZipFile(artifact, 'r')
        zip_ref.extractall(newtempdir)
        zip_ref.close()
        shutil.rmtree(origtmpdir)
        return(os.listdir(newtempdir), newtempdir)
    except OSError as e:
        if e.errno != errno.EEXIST:
            shutil.rmtree(newtempdir)
            raise

The worker now has the npm package that I want to store in my Artifactory NPM repository.

To authenticate with the NPM repository, the worker requests a temporary token from the Artifactory host. After receiving this temporary token, it creates a .npmrc file in the worker user’s home directory that includes a hash of the user name and temporary token. After it has authenticated, the worker runs npm config set registry <URL OF REPOSITORY> to configure the npm registry value to be the Artifactory host. Next, the worker runs npm publish –registry <URL OF REPOSITORY>, which publishes the node package to the NPM repository in the Artifactory host.

def push_to_npm(configuration, artifact_list, temp_dir, jobId):
    reponame = configuration['RepoKey']
    art_type = configuration['TypeOfArtifact']
    print("Putting artifact into NPM repository " + reponame)
    token, hostname, username = gen_artifactory_auth_token(configuration)
    npmconfigfile = create_npmconfig_file(configuration, username, token)
    url = hostname + '/artifactory/api/' + art_type + '/' + reponame
    print("Changing directory to " + str(temp_dir))
    os.chdir(temp_dir)
    try:
        print("Publishing following files to the repository: %s " % os.listdir(temp_dir))
        print("Sending artifact to Artifactory NPM registry URL: " + url)
        subprocess.call(["npm", "config", "set", "registry", url])
        req = subprocess.call(["npm", "publish", "--registry", url])
        print("Return code from npm publish: " + str(req))
        if req != 0:
            err_msg = "npm ERR! Recieved non OK response while sending response to Artifactory. Return code from npm publish: " + str(req)
            signal_failure(jobId, err_msg)
        else:
            signal_success(jobId)
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
       print("Received an error when trying to commit artifact %s to repository %s: " % (str(art_type), str(configuration['RepoKey']), str(e)))
       raise
    return(req, npmconfigfile)

If the return value from publishing to the repository is not 0, the worker signals a failure to CodePipeline. If the value is 0, the worker signals success to CodePipeline to indicate that the stage of the pipeline has been completed successfully.

For the custom worker code, see npm_job_worker.py in the GitHub repository.

I run my custom worker on an EC2 instance using the command python npm_job_worker.py, with an optional --version flag that can be used to specify worker versions other than 1. Then I trigger a release change in my pipeline:

From my custom worker output logs, I have just committed a package named node_example at version 1.0.3:

On artifact: index.js
Committing to the repo: https://artifactory.myexamplehost.com/artifactory/api/npm/npm
Sending artifact to Artifactory URL: https:// artifactoryhost.myexamplehost.com/artifactory/api/npm/npm
npm config: 0
npm http PUT https://artifactory.myexamplehost.com/artifactory/api/npm/npm/node_example
npm http 201 https://artifactory.myexamplehost.com/artifactory/api/npm/npm/node_example
+ [email protected]
Return code from npm publish: 0
Signaling success to CodePipeline

After that has been built successfully, I can find my artifact in my Artifactory repository:

To help you automate this process, I have created this AWS CloudFormation template that automates the creation of the CodeBuild project, the custom action, and the CodePipeline pipeline. It also launches the Amazon EC2-based custom job worker in an AWS Auto Scaling group. This template requires you to have a VPC and CodeCommit repository for your Node.js project. If you do not currently have a VPC in which you want to run your custom worker EC2 instances, you can use this AWS QuickStart to create one. If you do not have an existing Node.js project, I’ve provided a sample project in the GitHub repository.

Conclusion

I‘ve shown you the steps to integrate your JFrog Artifactory repository with your CodePipeline workflow. I’ve shown you how to create a custom action in CodePipeline and how to create a custom worker that works in your CI/CD pipeline. To dig deeper into custom actions and see how you can integrate your Artifactory repositories into your AWS CodePipeline projects, check out the full code base on GitHub.

If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to reach out to us through the AWS CodePipeline forum.

Erin McGill is a Solutions Architect in the AWS Partner Program with a focus on DevOps and automation tooling.

Connect, collaborate, and learn at AWS Global Summits in 2018

2018-05-18 Tina Kelleher

Post Syndicated from Tina Kelleher original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/connect-collaborate-and-learn-at-aws-global-summits-in-2018/

Regardless of your career path, there’s no denying that attending industry events can provide helpful career development opportunities — not only for improving and expanding your skill sets, but for networking as well. According to this article from PayScale.com, experts estimate that somewhere between 70-85% of new positions are landed through networking.

Narrowing our focus to networking opportunities with cloud computing professionals who’re working on tackling some of today’s most innovative and exciting big data solutions, attending big data-focused sessions at an AWS Global Summit is a great place to start.

AWS Global Summits are free events that bring the cloud computing community together to connect, collaborate, and learn about AWS. As the name suggests, these summits are held in major cities around the world, and attract technologists from all industries and skill levels who’re interested in hearing from AWS leaders, experts, partners, and customers.

In addition to networking opportunities with top cloud technology providers, consultants and your peers in our Partner and Solutions Expo, you’ll also hone your AWS skills by attending and participating in a multitude of education and training opportunities.

Here’s a brief sampling of some of the upcoming sessions relevant to big data professionals:

May 31^st : Big Data Architectural Patterns and Best Practices on AWS | AWS Summit – Mexico City
June 6^th-7^th: Various (click on the “Big Data & Analytics” header) | AWS Summit – Berlin
June 20-21^st : [email protected] | Public Sector Summit – Washington DC
June 21^st: Enabling Self Service for Data Scientists with AWS Service Catalog | AWS Summit – Sao Paulo

Be sure to check out the main page for AWS Global Summits, where you can see which cities have AWS Summits planned for 2018, register to attend an upcoming event, or provide your information to be notified when registration opens for a future event.

LC4: Another Pen-and-Paper Cipher

2018-05-03 Bruce Schneier

Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/05/lc4_another_pen.html

Interesting symmetric cipher: LC4:

Abstract: ElsieFour (LC4) is a low-tech cipher that can be computed by hand; but unlike many historical ciphers, LC4 is designed to be hard to break. LC4 is intended for encrypted communication between humans only, and therefore it encrypts and decrypts plaintexts and ciphertexts consisting only of the English letters A through Z plus a few other characters. LC4 uses a nonce in addition to the secret key, and requires that different messages use unique nonces. LC4 performs authenticated encryption, and optional header data can be included in the authentication. This paper defines the LC4 encryption and decryption algorithms, analyzes LC4’s security, and describes a simple appliance for computing LC4 by hand.

Almost two decades ago I designed Solitaire, a pen-and-paper cipher that uses a deck of playing cards to store the cipher’s state. This algorithm uses specialized tiles. This gives the cipher designer more options, but it can be incriminating in a way that regular playing cards are not.

Still, I like seeing more designs like this.

Hacker News thread.

How to Eliminate the Need for Hardcoded AWS Credentials in Devices by Using the AWS IoT Credentials Provider

2018-04-30 Ramkishore Bhattacharyya

Post Syndicated from Ramkishore Bhattacharyya original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-eliminate-the-need-for-hardcoded-aws-credentials-in-devices-by-using-the-aws-iot-credentials-provider/

The Internet of Things (IoT) has precipitated to an influx of connected devices and data that can be mined to gain useful business insights. If you own an IoT device, you might want the data to be uploaded seamlessly from your connected devices to the cloud so that you can make use of cloud storage and the processing power to perform sophisticated analysis of data. To upload the data to the AWS Cloud, devices must pass authentication and authorization checks performed by the respective AWS services. The standard way of authenticating AWS requests is the Signature Version 4 algorithm that requires the caller to have an access key ID and secret access key. Consequently, you need to hardcode the access key ID and the secret access key on your devices. Alternatively, you can use the built-in X.509 certificate as the unique device identity to authenticate AWS requests.

AWS IoT has introduced the credentials provider feature that allows a caller to authenticate AWS requests by having an X.509 certificate. The credentials provider authenticates a caller using an X.509 certificate, and vends a temporary, limited-privilege security token. The token can be used to sign and authenticate any AWS request. Thus, the credentials provider relieves you from having to manage and periodically refresh the access key ID and secret access key remotely on your devices.

In the process of retrieving a security token, you use AWS IoT to create a thing (a representation of a specific device or logical entity), register a certificate, and create AWS IoT policies. You also configure an AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) role and attach appropriate IAM policies to the role so that the credentials provider can assume the role on your behalf. You also make an HTTP-over-Transport Layer Security (TLS) mutual authentication request to the credentials provider that uses your preconfigured thing, certificate, policies, and IAM role to authenticate and authorize the request, and obtain a security token on your behalf. You can then use the token to sign any AWS request using Signature Version 4.

In this blog post, I explain the AWS IoT credentials provider design and then demonstrate the end-to-end process of retrieving a security token from AWS IoT and using the token to write a temperature and humidity record to a specific Amazon DynamoDB table.

Note: This post assumes you are familiar with AWS IoT and IAM to perform steps using the AWS CLI and OpenSSL. Make sure you are running the latest version of the AWS CLI.

Overview of the credentials provider workflow

The following numbered diagram illustrates the credentials provider workflow. The diagram is followed by explanations of the steps.

To explain the steps of the workflow as illustrated in the preceding diagram:

The AWS IoT device uses the AWS SDK or custom client to make an HTTPS request to the credentials provider for a security token. The request includes the device X.509 certificate for authentication.
The credentials provider forwards the request to the AWS IoT authentication and authorization module to verify the certificate and the permission to request the security token.
If the certificate is valid and has permission to request a security token, the AWS IoT authentication and authorization module returns success. Otherwise, it returns failure, which goes back to the device with the appropriate exception.
On successful validation, the credentials provider invokes the AWS Security Token Service (AWS STS) to assume the preconfigured IAM role.
If assuming the role succeeds, AWS STS returns a temporary, limited-privilege security token to the credentials provider.
The credentials provider returns the security token to the device.
The AWS SDK on the device uses the security token to sign an AWS request with AWS Signature Version 4.
The requested service invokes IAM to validate the signature and authorize the request against access policies attached to the preconfigured IAM role.
If IAM validates the signature successfully and authorizes the request, the request goes through.

In another solution, you could configure an AWS Lambda rule that ingests your device data and sends it to another AWS service. However, in applications that require the uploading of large files such as videos or aggregated telemetry to the AWS Cloud, you may want your devices to be able to authenticate and send data directly to the AWS service of your choice. The credentials provider enables you to do that.

Outline of the steps to retrieve and use security token

Perform the following steps as part of this solution:

Create an AWS IoT thing: Start by creating a thing that corresponds to your home thermostat in the AWS IoT thing registry database. This allows you to authenticate the request as a thing and use thing attributes as policy variables in AWS IoT and IAM policies.
Register a certificate: Create and register a certificate with AWS IoT, and attach it to the thing for successful device authentication.
Create and configure an IAM role: Create an IAM role to be assumed by the service on behalf of your device. I illustrate how to configure a trust policy and an access policy so that AWS IoT has permission to assume the role, and the token has necessary permission to make requests to DynamoDB.
Create a role alias: Create a role alias in AWS IoT. A role alias is an alternate data model pointing to an IAM role. The credentials provider request must include a role alias name to indicate which IAM role to assume for obtaining a security token from AWS STS. You may update the role alias on the server to point to a different IAM role and thus make your device obtain a security token with different permissions.
Attach a policy: Create an authorization policy with AWS IoT and attach it to the certificate to control which device can assume which role aliases.
Request a security token: Make an HTTPS request to the credentials provider and retrieve a security token and use it to sign a DynamoDB request with Signature Version 4.
Use the security token to sign a request: Use the retrieved token to sign a request to DynamoDB and successfully write a temperature and humidity record from your home thermostat in a specific table. Thus, starting with an X.509 certificate on your home thermostat, you can successfully upload your thermostat record to DynamoDB and use it for further analysis. Before the availability of the credentials provider, you could not do this.

Deploy the solution

1. Create an AWS IoT thing

Register your home thermostat in the AWS IoT thing registry database by creating a thing type and a thing. You can use the AWS CLI with the following command to create a thing type. The thing type allows you to store description and configuration information that is common to a set of things.

aws iot create-thing-type --thing-type-name Thermostat

The following is sample output of the create-thing-type command. It contains the thingTypeName, thingTypeId, and thingTypeArn.

{
    "thingTypeName": "Thermostat", 
    "thingTypeId": "11f6d708-919e-479d-8a37-790ce48204d8",
    "thingTypeArn": "arn:aws:iot:us-east-1:<your_aws_account_id>:thingtype/Thermostat"
}

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to create a thing.

aws iot create-thing --thing-name MyHomeThermostat --thing-type-name Thermostat --attribute-payload "{\"attributes\": {\"Owner\":\"Alice\"}}"

The following is sample output of the create-thing command. It contains the thingArn, thingName, and thingId.

{
    "thingArn": "arn:aws:iot:us-east-1:<your_aws_account_id>:thing/MyHomeThermostat", 
    "thingName": "MyHomeThermostat",
    "thingId": "a9b098ac-2ee9-4ba6-aa40-163113eb18d0"
}

2. Register a certificate

Now, you need to have a Certificate Authority (CA) certificate, sign a device certificate using the CA certificate, and register both certificates with AWS IoT before your device can authenticate to AWS IoT. If you do not already have a CA certificate, you can use OpenSSL to create a CA certificate, as described in Use Your Own Certificate. To register your CA certificate with AWS IoT, follow the steps on Registering Your CA Certificate.

You then have to create a device certificate signed by the CA certificate and register it with AWS IoT, which you can do by following the steps on Creating a Device Certificate Using Your CA Certificate. Save the certificate and the corresponding key pair; you will use them when you request a security token later. Also, remember the password you provide when you create the certificate.

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to attach the device certificate to your thing so that you can use thing attributes in policy variables.

aws iot attach-thing-principal --thing-name MyHomeThermostat --principal <certificate-arn>

If the attach-thing-principal command succeeds, the output is empty.

3. Configure an IAM role

Next, configure an IAM role in your AWS account that will be assumed by the credentials provider on behalf of your device. You are required to associate two policies with the role: a trust policy that controls who can assume the role, and an access policy that controls which actions can be performed on which resources by assuming the role.

The following trust policy grants the credentials provider permission to assume the role. Put it in a text document and save the document with the name, trustpolicyforiot.json.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Principal": {"Service": "credentials.iot.amazonaws.com"},
    "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
  }
}

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to create an IAM role with the preceding trust policy.

aws iam create-role --role-name dynamodb-access-role --assume-role-policy-document file://trustpolicyforiot.json

The following is sample output of the create-role command.

{
    "Role": {
        "AssumeRolePolicyDocument": {
            "Version": "2012-10-17", 
            "Statement": {
                "Action": "sts:AssumeRole", 
                "Effect": "Allow", 
                "Principal": {
                    "Service": "credentials.iot.amazonaws.com"
                }
            }
        }, 
        "RoleId": "AROAJWE6XX2DBF3PMINT6", 
        "CreateDate": "2018-01-18T08:40:03.788Z", 
        "RoleName": "dynamodb-access-role", 
        "Path": "/", 
        "Arn": "arn:aws:iam::<your_aws_account_id>:role/dynamodb-access-role"
    }
}

The following access policy allows DynamoDB operations on the table that has the same name as the thing name that you created in Step 1, MyHomeThermostat, by using credentials-iot:ThingName as a policy variable. I explain after Step 5 about using thing attributes as policy variables. Put the following policy in a text document and save the document with the name, accesspolicyfordynamodb.json.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
      "dynamodb:GetItem",
      "dynamodb:BatchGetItem",
      "dynamodb:PutItem",
      "dynamodb:UpdateItem",
      "dynamodb:DeleteItem"
    ],
    "Resource": "arn:aws:dynamodb:us-east-1:<your_aws_account_id>:table/${credentials-iot:ThingName}"
  }
}

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to create the access policy.

aws iam create-policy --policy-name accesspolicyfordynamodb --policy-document file://accesspolicyfordynamodb.json

The following is sample output of the create-policy command.

{
    "Policy": {
        "PolicyName": "accesspolicyfordynamodb", 
        "CreateDate": "2018-01-18T08:47:38.368Z", 
        "AttachmentCount": 0, 
        "IsAttachable": true, 
        "PolicyId": "ANPAJMRTTZH25SEHZOBYG", 
        "DefaultVersionId": "v1", 
        "Path": "/", 
        "Arn": "arn:aws:iam::<your_aws_account_id>:policy/accesspolicyfordynamodb", 
        "UpdateDate": "2018-01-18T08:47:38.368Z"
    }
}

Finally, run the following command in the AWS CLI to attach the access policy to your role.

aws iam attach-role-policy --role-name dynamodb-access-role --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::<your_aws_account_id>:policy/accesspolicyfordynamodb

If the attach-role-policy command succeeds, the output is empty.

Configure the PassRole permissions

The IAM role that you have created must be passed to AWS IoT to create a role alias, as described in Step 4. The user who performs the operation requires iam:PassRole permission to authorize this action. You also should add permission for the iam:GetRole action to allow the user to retrieve information about the specified role. Create the following policy to grant iam:PassRole and iam:GetRole permissions. Name this policy, passrolepermission.json.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
        "iam:GetRole",
        "iam:PassRole"
    ],
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iam::<your_aws_account_id>:role/dynamodb-access-role"
  }
}

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to create the policy in your AWS account.

aws iam create-policy --policy-name passrolepermission --policy-document file://passrolepermission.json

The following is sample output of the create-policy command.

{
    "Policy": {
        "PolicyName": "passrolepermission", 
        "CreateDate": "2018-01-18T08:53:35.016Z", 
        "AttachmentCount": 0, 
        "IsAttachable": true, 
        "PolicyId": "ANPAJ6HSQYSBLAUCR5XRC", 
        "DefaultVersionId": "v1", 
        "Path": "/", 
        "Arn": "arn:aws:iam::<your_aws_account_id>:policy/passrolepermission", 
        "UpdateDate": "2018-01-18T08:53:35.016Z"
    }
}

Now, run the following command to attach the policy to the user.

aws iam attach-user-policy --policy-arn arn:aws:iam::<your_aws_account_id>:policy/passrolepermission --user-name <user_name>

If the attach-user-policy command succeeds, the output is empty.

4. Create a role alias

Now that you have configured the IAM role, you will create a role alias with AWS IoT. You must provide the following pieces of information when creating a role alias:

RoleAlias: This is the primary key of the role alias data model and hence a mandatory attribute. It is a string; the minimum length is 1 character, and the maximum length is 128 characters.
RoleArn: This is the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the IAM role you have created. This is also a mandatory attribute.
CredentialDurationSeconds: This is an optional attribute specifying the validity (in seconds) of the security token. The minimum value is 900 seconds (15 minutes), and the maximum value is 3,600 seconds (60 minutes); the default value is 3,600 seconds, if not specified.

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to create a role alias. Use the credentials of the user to whom you have given the iam:PassRole permission.

aws iot create-role-alias --role-alias Thermostat-dynamodb-access-role-alias --role-arn arn:aws:iam::<your_aws_account_id>:role/dynamodb-access-role --credential-duration-seconds 3600

The following is sample output of the create-role-alias command. It contains the roleAlias as specified in the request and the roleArn.

{
    "roleAlias": "Thermostat-dynamodb-access-role-alias",
    "roleAliasArn": "arn:aws:iot:us-east-1:<your_aws_account_id>:rolealias/Thermostat-dynamodb-access-role-alias"
}

5. Attach a policy

You created and registered a certificate with AWS IoT earlier for successful authentication of your device. Now, you need to create and attach a policy to the certificate to authorize the request for the security token.

Let’s say you want to allow a thing to get credentials for the role alias, Thermostat-dynamodb-access-role-alias, with thing owner Alice, thing type thermostat, and the thing attached to a principal. The following policy, with thing attributes as policy variables, achieves these requirements. After this step, I explain more about using thing attributes as policy variables. Put the policy in a text document, and save it with the name, alicethermostatpolicy.json.

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": {
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": "iot:AssumeRoleWithCertificate",
    "Resource": "arn:aws:iot:us-east-1:<your_aws_account_id>:rolealias/${iot:Connection.Thing.ThingTypeName}-dynamodb-access-role-alias",
    "Condition": {
      "StringEquals": {
        "iot:Connection.Thing.Attributes[Owner]": "Alice",
        "iot:Connection.Thing.ThingTypeName": "Thermostat"
      },
      "Bool": {
        "iot:Connection.Thing.IsAttached": "true"
      }
    }
  }
}

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to create the policy in your AWS IoT database.

aws iot create-policy --policy-name AliceThermostatPolicy --policy-document file://alicethermostatpolicy.json

The following is sample output of the create-policy command. It contains the policyName, policyArn, policyDocument, and policyVersionId.

{
    "policyName": "AliceThermostatPolicy", 
    "policyArn": "arn:aws:iot:us-east-1:<your_aws_account_id>:policy/AliceThermostatPolicy", 
    "policyDocument": "{\n  \"Version\": \"2012-10-17\",\n  \"Statement\": {\n    \"Effect\": \"Allow\",\n    \"Action\": \"iot:AssumeRoleWithCertificate\",\n    \"Resource\": \"arn:aws:iot:us-east-1:<your_aws_account_id>:rolealias/${iot:Connection.Thing.ThingTypeName}-dynamodb-access-role-alias\",\n    \"Condition\": {\n      \"StringEquals\": {\n        \"iot:Connection.Thing.Attributes[Owner]\": \"Alice\",\n        \"iot:Connection.Thing.ThingTypeName\": \"Thermostat\"\n      },\n      \"Bool\": {\n        \"iot:Connection.Thing.IsAttached\": \"true\"\n      }\n    }\n  }\n}\n", 
    "policyVersionId": "1"
}

Use the following command to attach the policy with the certificate you registered earlier.

aws iot attach-policy --policy-name AliceThermostatPolicy --target <certificate-arn>

If the attach-policy command succeeds, the output is empty.

You have completed all the necessary steps to request an AWS security token from the credentials provider!

Using thing attributes as policy variables

Before I show how to request a security token, I want to explain more about how to use thing attributes as policy variables and the advantage of using them. As a prerequisite, a device must provide a thing name in the credentials provider request.

Thing substitution variables in AWS IoT policies

AWS IoT Simplified Permission Management allows you to associate a connection with a specific thing, and allow the thing name, thing type, and other thing attributes to be available as substitution variables in AWS IoT policies. You can write a generic AWS IoT policy as in alicethermostatpolicy.json in Step 5, attach it to multiple certificates, and authorize the connection as a thing. For example, you could attach alicethermostatpolicy.json to certificates corresponding to each of the thermostats you have that you want to assume the role alias, Thermostat-dynamodb-access-role-alias, and allow operations only on the table with the name that matches the thing name. For more information, see the full list of thing policy variables.

Thing substitution variables in IAM policies

You also can use the following three substitution variables in the IAM role’s access policy (I used credentials-iot:ThingName in accesspolicyfordynamodb.json in Step 3):

credentials-iot:ThingName
credentials-iot:ThingTypeName
credentials-iot:AwsCertificateId

When the device provides the thing name in the request, the credentials provider fetches these three variables from the database and adds them as context variables to the security token. When the device uses the token to access DynamoDB, the variables in the role’s access policy are replaced with the corresponding values in the security token. Note that you also can use credentials-iot:AwsCertificateId as a policy variable; AWS IoT returns certificateId during registration.

6. Request a security token

Make an HTTPS request to the credentials provider to fetch a security token. You have to supply the following information:

Certificate and key pair: Because this is an HTTP request over TLS mutual authentication, you have to provide the certificate and the corresponding key pair to your client while making the request. Use the same certificate and key pair that you used during certificate registration with AWS IoT.
RoleAlias: Provide the role alias (in this example, Thermostat-dynamodb-access-role-alias) to be assumed in the request.
ThingName: Provide the thing name that you created earlier in the AWS IoT thing registry database. This is passed as a header with the name, x-amzn-iot-thingname. Note that the thing name is mandatory only if you have thing attributes as policy variables in AWS IoT or IAM policies.

Run the following command in the AWS CLI to obtain your AWS account-specific endpoint for the credentials provider. See the DescribeEndpoint API documentation for further details.

aws iot describe-endpoint --endpoint-type iot:CredentialProvider

The following is sample output of the describe-endpoint command. It contains the endpointAddress.

{
    "endpointAddress": "<your_aws_account_specific_prefix>.credentials.iot.us-east-1.amazonaws.com"
}

Note that if you are on Mac OS X, you need to export your certificate to a .pfx or .p12 file before you can pass it in the https request. Use OpenSSL with the following command to convert the device certificate from .pem to .pfx format. Remember the password because you will need it subsequently in a curl command.

openssl pkcs12 -export -out deviceCert.pfx -inkey <device-certificate-key-pair> -in <device-certificate-pem>

Now, make an HTTPS request to the credentials provider to fetch a security token. You may use your preferred HTTP client for the request. I use curl in the following examples.

curl --cert deviceCert.pfx --pass <certificate-password> --key <device-certificate-key-pair> -H "x-amzn-iot-thingname: MyHomeThermostat" https://<your_credentials_provider_endpoint>/role-aliases/Thermostat-dynamodb-access-role-alias/credentials

This command returns a security token object that has an accessKeyId, a secretAccessKey, a sessionToken, and an expiration. The following is sample output of the curl command.

{"credentials":{"accessKeyId":"ASIAJAKDHYFVFZCETC4A","secretAccessKey":"6RcojWDX0uWj3hRekTu/kOhXyyfqMU+T5U81LZzf","sessionToken":"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","expiration":"2018-01-18T09:18:06Z"}}

7. Use the security token to sign a request

Create a DynamoDB table called MyHomeThermostat in your AWS account. You will have to choose the hash (partition key) and the range (sort key) while creating the table to uniquely identify a record. Make the hash the serial_number of the thermostat and the range the timestamp of the record. Create a text file with the following JSON to put a temperature and humidity record in the table. Name the file, item.json.

{
  "serial_number": {"S": "123456789"},
  "timestamp": {"S": "2017-11-20T06:00:00.000Z"},
  "current_temp": {"N": "65"},
  "target_temp": {"N": "70"},
  "humidity": {"N": "45"}
}

You can use the accessKeyId, secretAccessKey, and sessionToken retrieved from the output of the curl command to sign a request that writes the temperature and humidity record to the DynamoDB table. Use the following commands to accomplish this.

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=<access-key-id>
export AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=<secret-access-key>
export AWS_SESSION_TOKEN=<session-token>
aws dynamodb put-item --table-name MyHomeThermostat --item file://item.json --return-consumed-capacity TOTAL

The following is sample output of the put-item command.

{
    "ConsumedCapacity": {
        "CapacityUnits": 1.0, 
        "TableName": "MyHomeThermostat"
    }
}

Conclusion

In this blog post, I demonstrated how to retrieve a security token by using an X.509 certificate and then writing an item to a DynamoDB table by using the security token. Similarly, you could run applications on surveillance cameras or sensor devices that exchange the X.509 certificate for an AWS security token and use the token to upload video streams to Amazon Kinesis or telemetry data to Amazon CloudWatch.

If you have comments about this blog post, submit them in the “Comments” section below. If you have questions about or issues implementing this solution, start a new thread on the AWS IoT forum.

– Ramkishore

Integrating Amazon MQ with other AWS services via Apache Camel

2018-04-23 Tara Van Unen

Post Syndicated from Tara Van Unen original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/integrating-amazon-mq-with-other-aws-services-via-apache-camel/

This post courtesy of Massimiliano Angelino, AWS Solutions Architect

Different enterprise systems—ERP, CRM, BI, HR, etc.—need to exchange information but normally cannot do that natively because they are from different vendors. Enterprises have tried multiple ways to integrate heterogeneous systems, generally referred to as enterprise application integration (EAI).

Modern EAI systems are based on a message-oriented middleware (MoM), also known as enterprise service bus (ESB). An ESB provides data communication via a message bus, on top of which it also provides components to orchestrate, route, translate, and monitor the data exchange. Communication with the ESB is done via adapters or connectors provided by the ESB. In this way, the different applications do not have to have specific knowledge of the technology used to provide the integration.

Amazon MQ used with Apache Camel is an open-source alternative to commercial ESBs. With the launch of Amazon MQ, integration between on-premises applications and cloud services becomes much simpler. Amazon MQ provides a managed message broker service currently supporting ApacheMQ 5.15.0.

In this post, I show how a simple integration between Amazon MQ and other AWS services can be achieved by using Apache Camel.

Apache Camel provides built-in connectors for integration with a wide variety of AWS services such as Amazon MQ, Amazon SQS, Amazon SNS, Amazon SWF, Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, Amazon DynamoDB, AWS Elastic Beanstalk, and Amazon Kinesis Streams. It also provides a broad range of other connectors including Cassandra, JDBC, Spark, and even Facebook and Slack.

EAI system architecture

Different applications use different data formats, hence the need for a translation/transformation service. Such services can be provided to or from a common “normalized” format, or specifically between two applications.

The use of normalized formats simplifies the integration process when multiple applications need to share the same data, as the number of conversions to be realized is N (number of applications). This is at the cost of a more complex adaptation to a common format, which is required to cover all needs from the different applications, current and future.

Another characteristic of an EAI system is the support of distributed transactions to ensure data consistency across multiple applications.

EAI system architecture is normally composed of the following components:

A centralized broker that handles security, access control, and data communications. Amazon MQ provides these features through the support of multiple transport protocols (AMQP, Openwire, MQTT, WebSocket), security (all communications are encrypted via SSL), and per destination granular access control.
An independent data model, also known as the canonical data model. XML is the de facto standard for the data representation.
Connectors/agents that allow the applications to communicate with the broker.
A system model to allow a standardized way for all components to interface with the EAI. Java Message Service (JMS) and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) are standard APIs to interact with constructs such as queues and topics to implement the different messaging patterns.

Walkthrough

This solution walks you through the following steps:

Creating the broker
Writing a simple application
Adding the dependencies
Triaging files into S3
Writing the Camel route
Sending files to the AMQP queue
Setting up AMQP
Testing the code

Creating the broker

To create a new broker, log in to your AWS account and choose Amazon MQ. Amazon MQ is currently available in six AWS Regions:

US East (N. Virginia)
US East (Ohio)
US West (Oregon)
EU (Ireland)
EU (Frankfurt)
Asia Pacific (Sydney) regions.

Make sure that you have selected one of these Regions.

The master user name and password are used to access the monitoring console of the broker and can be also used to authenticate when connecting the clients to the broker. I recommend creating separate users, without console access, to authenticate the clients to the broker, after the broker has been created.

For this example, create a single broker without failover. If your application requires a higher availability level, check the Create standby in a different zone check box. In case the principal broker instance would fail, the standby takes over in seconds. To make the client aware of the standby, use the failover:// protocol in the connection configuration pointing to both broker endpoints.

Leave the other settings as is. The broker takes few minutes to be created. After it’s done, you can see the list of endpoints available for the different protocols.

After the broker has been created, modify the security group to add the allowed ports and sources for access.

For this example, you need access to the ActiveMQ admin page and to AMQP. Open up ports 8162 and 5671 to the public address of your laptop.

You can also create a new user for programmatic access to the broker. In the Users section, choose Create User and add a new user named sdk.

Writing a simple application

The complete code for this walkthrough is available from the aws-amazonmq-apachecamel-sample GitHub repo. Clone the repository on your local machine to have the fully functional example. The rest of this post offers step-by-step instructions to build this solution.

To write the application, use Apache Maven and the Camel archetypes provided by Maven. If you do not have Apache Maven installed on your machine, you can follow the instructions at Installing Apache Maven.

From a terminal, run the following command:

mvn archetype:generate

You get a list of archetypes. Type camel to get only the one related to camel. In this case, use the java8 example and type the following:

90 + ENTER

Then, select a Camel version (pick the most recent) and fill in other properties for the project, such as groupId, artifactId, and version. For more information, see Guide to naming conventions on groupId, artifactId and version.

For this example, use the following values:

groupId: com.angmas
artifactId: camel-aws-simple
version: 1.0-SNAPSHOT

Maven now generates the skeleton code in a folder named as the artifactId. In this case:

camel-aws-simple

Next, test that the environment is configured correctly to run Camel. At the prompt, run the following commands:

cd camel-aws-simple
mvn install
mvn exec:java

You should see a log appearing in the console, printing the following:

[INFO] --- exec-maven-plugin:1.6.0:java (default-cli) @ camel-aws-test ---
[     com.angmas.MainApp.main()] DefaultCamelContext            INFO  Apache Camel 2.20.1 (CamelContext: camel-1) is starting
[     com.angmas.MainApp.main()] ManagedManagementStrategy      INFO  JMX is enabled
[     com.angmas.MainApp.main()] DefaultTypeConverter           INFO  Type converters loaded (core: 192, classpath: 0)
[     com.angmas.MainApp.main()] DefaultCamelContext            INFO  StreamCaching is not in use. If using streams then its recommended to enable stream caching. See more details at http://camel.apache.org/stream-caching.html
[     com.angmas.MainApp.main()] DefaultCamelContext            INFO  Route: route1 started and consuming from: timer://simple?period=1000
[     com.angmas.MainApp.main()] DefaultCamelContext            INFO  Total 1 routes, of which 1 are started
[     com.angmas.MainApp.main()] DefaultCamelContext            INFO  Apache Camel 2.20.1 (CamelContext: camel-1) started in 0.419 seconds
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got a String body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got an Integer body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got a Double body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got a String body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got an Integer body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got a Double body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got a String body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got an Integer body
[-1) thread #2 - timer://simple] route1                         INFO  Got a Double body

Adding the dependencies

Now that you have verified that the sample works, modify it to add the dependencies to interface to Amazon MQ/ActiveMQ and AWS.

For the following steps, you can use a normal text editor, such as vi, Sublime Text, or Visual Studio Code. Or, open the maven project in an IDE such as Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA.

Open pom.xml and add the following lines inside the <dependencies> tag:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
  <artifactId>camel-amqp</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
  <artifactId>camel-aws</artifactId>
</dependency>

The camel-aws component is taking care of the interface with the supported AWS services without requiring any in-depth knowledge of the AWS Java SDK. For more information, see Camel Components for Amazon Web Services.

Triaging files into S3

Write a Camel component that receives files as a payload to messages in a queue and write them to an S3 bucket with different prefixes depending on the extension.

Because the broker that you created is exposed via a public IP address, you can execute the code from anywhere that there is an internet connection that allows communication on the specific ports. In this example, run the code from your own laptop. A broker can also be created without public IP address, in which case it is only accessible from inside the VPC in which it has been created, or by any peered VPC or network connected via a virtual gateway (VPN or AWS Direct Connect).

First, look at the code created by Maven. The archetype chosen created a standalone Camel context run via the helper org.apache.camel.main.Main class. This provides an easy way to run Camel routes from an IDE or the command line without needing to deploy it inside a container. Apache Camel can be also run as an OSGi module, or Spring and SpringBoot bean.

package com.angmas;
import org.apache.camel.main.Main;
/**
 * A Camel Application
 */
public class MainApp {
    /**
     * A main() so you can easily run these routing rules in your IDE
     */
    public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
        Main main = new Main();
        main.addRouteBuilder(new MyRouteBuilder());
        main.run(args);
    }
}

The main method instantiates the Camel Main helper class and the routes, and runs the Camel application. The MyRouteBuilder class creates a route using Java DSL. It is also possible to define routes in Spring XML and load them dynamically in the code.

public void configure() {
        // this sample sets a random body then performs content-based
        // routing on the message using method references
        from("timer:simple?period=1000")
            .process()
                .message(m -> m.setHeader("index", index++ % 3))
            .transform()
                .message(this::randomBody)
            .choice()
                .when()
                    .body(String.class::isInstance)
                    .log("Got a String body")
                .when()
                    .body(Integer.class::isInstance)
                    .log("Got an Integer body")
                .when()
                    .body(Double.class::isInstance)
                    .log("Got a Double body")
                .otherwise()
                    .log("Other type message");
    }

Writing the Camel route

Replace the existing route with one that fetches messages from Amazon MQ over AMQP, and routes the content to different S3 buckets depending on the file name extension.

import com.amazonaws.regions.Regions;
import com.amazonaws.services.s3.AmazonS3ClientBuilder;
…
public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
        Main main = new Main();
        main.bind("s3Client", AmazonS3ClientBuilder.standard().withRegion(Regions.US_EAST_1).build());
        main.addRouteBuilder(new MyRouteBuilder());
        main.addRouteBuilder(new MessageProducerBuilder());
        main.run(args);
    }


public class MyRouteBuilder extends RouteBuilder {
    private String secretKey = System.getenv("AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY");
    private String accessKey = System.getenv("AWS_ACCESS_KEY");
    
    public void configure() {
        from("amqp:filequeue")
        .process()
            .message(this::setExtensionHeader)
        .choice()
            .when(header("ext").isEqualTo("txt"))
                .setHeader("CamelAwsS3Key").simple("text-files/${headers.CamelFileName}")
                .to("aws-s3://my-camel-example-bucket? amazonS3Client=#s3Client")
            .when(header("ext").isEqualTo("html"))
                .setHeader("CamelAwsS3Key").simple("html-files/${headers.CamelFileName}")
                .to("aws-s3://my-camel-example-bucket? amazonS3Client=#s3Client")
            .otherwise()
                .setHeader("CamelAwsS3Key").simple("other-files/${headers.CamelFileName}")
                .to("aws-s3://my-camel-example-bucket? amazonS3Client=#s3Client");

    }

    private void setExtensionHeader(Message m) {
        String fileName = (String) m.getHeader("CamelFileName");
        String ext = fileName.substring(fileName.lastIndexOf(".")+1);
        m.setHeader("ext", ext);
    }

}

The above code does the following:

Reads messages from the AMQP queue named filequeue.
Processes the message and sets a new ext header using the setExtensionHeader method (see below).
Checks the value of the ext header and write the body of the message as an object in an S3 bucket using different key prefixes, retaining the original name of the file.

The Amazon S3 component is configured with the bucket name, and a reference to an S3 client (amazonS3client=#s3Client) that you added to the Camel registry in the Main method of the app. Adding the object to the Camel registry allows Camel to find the object at runtime. Even though you could pass the region, accessKey, and secretKey parameters directly in the component URI, this way is more secure. It can make use of EC2 instance roles, so that you never need to pass the secrets.

Sending files to the AMQP queue

To send the files to the AMQP queue for testing, add another Camel route. In a real scenario, the messages to the AMQP queue are generated by another client. You are going to create a new route builder, but you could also add this route inside the existing MyRouteBuilder.

package com.angmas;

import org.apache.camel.builder.RouteBuilder;

/**
 * A Camel Java8 DSL Router
 */
public class MessageProducerBuilder extends RouteBuilder {
    /**
     * Configure the Camel routing rules using Java code...
     */
    public void configure() {
        from("file://input?delete=false&noop=true")
        .log("Content ${body} ${headers.CamelFileName}")
        .to("amqp:filequeue");
    }
}

The code reads files from the input folder in the work directory and publishes it to the queue. The route builder is added in the main class:

main.addRouteBuilder(new MessageProducerBuilder());

Setting up AMQP

By default, Camel tries to connect to a local AMQP broker. Configure it to connect to your Amazon MQ broker.

Create an AMQPConnectionDetails object that is configured to connect to Amazon MQ broker with SSL and pass the user name and password that you set on the broker. Adding the object to the Camel registry allows Camel to find the object at runtime and use it as the default connection to AMQP.

public class MainApp {
    public static String BROKER_URL = System.getenv("BROKER_URL");
    public static String AMQP_URL = "amqps://"+BROKER_URL+":5671";
    public static String BROKER_USERNAME = System.getenv("BROKER_USERNAME");
    public static String BROKER_PASSWORD = System.getenv("BROKER_PASSWORD");
    /**
     * A main() so you can easily run these routing rules in your IDE
     */
    public static void main(String... args) throws Exception {
        Main main = new Main();
        main.bind("amqp", getAMQPconnection());
        main.bind("s3Client", AmazonS3ClientBuilder.standard().withRegion(Regions.US_EAST_1).build());
        main.addRouteBuilder(new MyRouteBuilder());
        main.addRouteBuilder(new MessageProducerBuilder());
        main.run(args);
    }

    public static AMQPConnectionDetails getAMQPconnection() {
        return new AMQPConnectionDetails(AMQP_URL, BROKER_USERNAME, BROKER_PASSWORD);
    }

}

The AMQP_URL uses the amqps schema that indicates that you are using SSL. You then add the component to the registry. Camel finds it by matching the class type.
main.bind("amqp-ssl", getAMQPConnection());

Testing the code

Create an input folder in the project root, and create few files with different extensions, such as txt, html, and csv.

Set the different environment variables required by the code, either in the shell or in your IDE as execution configuration.

export BROKER_URL="xxx.mq.us-east-1.amazonaws.com"
export BROKER_PASSWORD="***"
export BROKER_USERNAME="admin"

If you are running the example from an EC2 instance, ensure that the EC2 instance role has read permission on the S3 bucket.

If you are running this on your laptop, ensure that you have configured the AWS credentials in the environment, for example, by using the aws configure command.

From the command line, execute the code:

mvn exec:java

If you are using an IDE, execute the main class. Camel outputs logging information and you should see messages listing the content and names of the files in the input folder.

Keep adding some more files to the input folder. You see that they are triaged in S3 a few seconds later. You can open the S3 console to check that they have been created.

To stop Camel, press CTRL+C in the shell.

Conclusion

In this post, I showed you how to create a publicly accessible Amazon MQ broker, and how to use Apache Camel to easily integrate AWS services with the broker. In the example, you created a Camel route that reads messages containing files from the AMQP queue and triages them by file extension into an S3 bucket.

Camel supports several components and provides blueprints for several enterprise integration patterns. Used in combination with the Amazon MQ, it provides a powerful and flexible solution to extend traditional enterprise solutions to the AWS Cloud, and integrate them seamlessly with cloud-native services, such as Amazon S3, Amazon SNS, Amazon SQS, Amazon CloudWatch, and AWS Lambda.

To learn more, see the Amazon MQ website. You can try Amazon MQ for free with the AWS Free Tier, which includes up to 750 hours of a single-instance mq.t2.micro broker and up to 1 GB of storage per month for one year.

Pirates Taunt Amazon Over New “Turd Sandwich” Prime Video Quality

2018-04-19 Andy

Post Syndicated from Andy original https://torrentfreak.com/pirates-taunt-amazon-over-new-turd-sandwich-prime-video-quality-180419/

Even though they generally aren’t paying for the content they consume, don’t fall into the trap of believing that all pirates are eternally grateful for even poor quality media.

Without a doubt, some of the most quality-sensitive individuals are to be found in pirate communities and they aren’t scared to make their voices known when release groups fail to come up with the best possible goods.

This week there’s been a sustained chorus of disapproval over the quality of pirate video releases sourced from Amazon Prime. The anger is usually directed at piracy groups who fail to capture content in the correct manner but according to a number of observers, the problem is actually at Amazon’s end.

Discussions on Reddit, for example, report that episodes in a single TV series have been declining in filesize and bitrate, from 1.56 GB in 720p at a 3073 kb/s video bitrate for episode 1, down to 907 MB in 720p at just 1514 kb/s video bitrate for episode 10.

Numerous theories as to why this may be the case are being floated around, including that Amazon is trying to save on bandwidth expenses. While this is a possibility, the company hasn’t made any announcements to that end.

Indeed, one legitimate customer reported that he’d raised the quality issue with Amazon and they’d said that the problem was “probably on his end”.

“I have Amazon Prime Video and I noticed the quality was always great for their exclusive shows, so I decided to try buying the shows on Amazon instead of iTunes this year. I paid for season pass subscriptions for Legion, Billions and Homeland this year,” he wrote.

“Just this past weekend, I have noticed a significant drop in details compared to weeks before! So naturally I assumed it was an issue on my end. I started trying different devices, calling support, etc, but nothing really helped.

“Billions continued to look like a blurry mess, almost like I was watching a standard definition DVD instead of the crystal clear HD I paid for and have experienced in the past! And when I check the previous episodes, sure enough, they look fantastic again. What the heck??”

With Amazon distancing itself from the issues, piracy groups have already begun to dig in the knife. Release group DEFLATE has been particularly critical.

“Amazon, in their infinite wisdom, have decided to start fucking with the quality of their encodes. They’re now reaching Netflix’s subpar 1080p.H264 levels, and their H265 encodes aren’t even close to what Netflix produces,” the group said in a file attached to S02E07 of The Good Fight released on Sunday.

“Netflix is able to produce drastic visual improvements with their H265 encodes compared to H264 across every original. In comparison, Amazon can’t decide whether H265 or H264 is going to produce better results, and as a result we suffer for it.”

Arrr! The quality be fallin’

So what’s happening exactly?

A TorrentFreak source (who tells us he’s been working in the BluRay/DCP authoring business for the last 10 years) was kind enough to give us two opinions, one aimed at the techies and another at us mere mortals.

“In technical terms, it appears [Amazon has] increased the CRF [Constant Rate Factor] value they use when encoding for both the HEVC [H265] and H264 streams. Previously, their H264 streams were using CRF 18 and a max bitrate of 15Mbit/s, which usually resulted in file sizes of roughly 3GB, or around 10Mbit/s. Similarly with their HEVC streams, they were using CRF 20 and resulting in streams which were around the same size,” he explained.

“In the past week, the H264 streams have decreased by up to 50% for some streams. While there are no longer any x264 headers embedded in the H264 streams, the HEVC streams still retain those headers and the CRF value used has been increased, so it does appear this change has been done on purpose.”

In layman’s terms, our source believes that Amazon had previously been using an encoding profile that was “right on the edge of relatively good quality” which kept bitrates relatively low but high enough to ensure no perceivable loss of quality.

“H264 streams encoded with CRF 18 could provide an acceptable compromise between quality and file size, where the loss of detail is often negligible when watched at regular viewing distances, at a desk, or in a lounge room on a larger TV,” he explained.

“Recently, it appears these values have been intentionally changed in order to lower the bitrate and file sizes for reasons unknown. As a result, the quality of some streams has been reduced by up to 50% of their previous values. This has introduced a visual loss of quality, comparable to that of viewing something in standard definition versus high definition.”

With the situation failing to improve during the week, by the time piracy group DEFLATE released S03E14 of Supergirl on Tuesday their original criticism had transformed into flat-out insults.

“These are only being done in H265 because Amazon have shit the bed, and it’s a choice between a turd sandwich and a giant douche,” they wrote, offering these images as illustrative of the problem and these indicating what should be achievable.

With DEFLATE advising customers to start complaining to Amazon, the memes have already begun, with unfavorable references to now-defunct group YIFY (which was often chastized for its low quality rips) and even a spin on one of the most well known anti-piracy campaigns.

You wouldn’t ~~download~~ stream….

TorrentFreak contacted Amazon Prime for comment on both the recent changes and growing customer complaints but at the time of publication we were yet to receive a response.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

ICYMI: Serverless Q1 2018

2018-04-18 Chris Munns

Post Syndicated from Chris Munns original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/compute/icymi-serverless-q1-2018/

This post courtesy of Paul Johnston, AWS Senior Developer Advocate – Serverless

Welcome to the first edition of the AWS Serverless ICYMI (In case you missed it) quarterly recap! Every quarter we’ll share all of the most recent product launches, feature enhancements, blog posts, webinars, Twitch live streams, and other interesting things that you might have missed!

So, what might you have missed? Here’s the recap…

Serverless Application Repository

In February, we moved Serverless Application Repository out of preview and into General Availability (GA). This means that you can now search for, configure, and deploy serverless applications directly to your AWS account. Publishers include DataDog, Splunk (see related blog post Introducing Splunk AWS Serverless Applications), and New Relic.

Some example applications include:

Alexa Random Restaurant – Python-based backend for an Alexa skill that returns an open restaurant in a specified city using the Yelp API. Published by: Harsha Warrdhan Sharma
Podless – A serverless application that downloads podcasts to an S3 bucket. Published by: Stilvoid
Crypto-monitor – Collect and store crypto currency prices and send yourself an alert if one changes significantly. Published by: Drew Dresser
DailyDoggo – Send a daily link to a random dog picture to a phone number, via AWS Lambda and SNS. Published by: Kevin McCandless

We also published a bunch of our own applications to help build financial applications:

Connect with developers and customers everywhere by publishing your serverless applications. For more information, see Publishing Applications to the Repository.

New features

We announced two new runtimes for AWS Lambda:

These runtimes give Lambda developers and development teams even greater options for coding serverless, on-demand, compute solutions.

The AWS SAM 1.4.0 release was one of its biggest. The release added features for configuring many aspects of Amazon API Gateway, including CORS support, regional endpoints, binary media types, and stage settings. It also included per function concurrency support, tags and TableName for SimpleTable, and many documentation updates. Check out the release notes for the full list!

AppSync came out of the whitelisted preview and added a whole bunch of new features:

Cloud9 launched support for debugging Python Lambda functions.

[email protected] added more header support for S3 origins.

Serverless posts

January:

February:

March:

Webinars

Here are the three webinars we delivered in Q1. We hold several Serverless webinars throughout the year, so look out for them in the Serverless section of the AWS Online Tech Talks page:

Twitch

In February, we started a Serverless series on Twitch with our first video looking at the Well Architected Framework Serverless Lens. We also had Salman and James from the Serverless Application Repository team talking about what it takes to deploy and publish applications.

Keep an eye on AWS on Twitch for more Serverless videos and on the Join us on the Twitch AWS page for information about upcoming broadcasts and recent live streams.

Case studies

We’ve published several new case studies this quarter to help you with understanding how other organizations are using serverless technologies:

Worthwhile reading

If you haven’t read the AWS Well Architected Framework Serverless Application Lens document, then it’s worth taking the time to do so. The document covers common serverless applications scenarios and identifies key elements to ensure that your workloads are architected according to best practices.

In other news

AWS Documentation is now open source and on GitHub, which is awesome!

From now on, if you find issues with documentation we have open-sourced, you can tell us via a Pull Request rather than tweeting or emailing us. The current available serverless repositories are here:

AWS Lambda https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-lambda-developer-guide/blob/master/doc_source/welcome.md
AWS Step Functions https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-step-functions-developer-guide
AWS Serverless Application Repository https://github.com/awsdocs/aws-serverlessrepo-developer-guide

Looking to get hands-on with serverless?

We’re always looking to help people start learning how to build serverless applications. Our serverless web application workshops are online and you can do the hands-on labs yourself:
Build a Serverless web application

Still looking for more?

The Serverless landing page has lots of information including a resources page containing case studies, webinars, whitepapers, customer stories, reference architectures, and even more Getting Started tutorials. Check it out!

AIY Projects 2: Google’s AIY Projects Kits get an upgrade

2018-04-17 Alex Bate

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/google-aiy-projects-2/

After the outstanding success of their AIY Projects Voice and Vision Kits, Google has announced the release of upgraded kits, complete with Raspberry Pi Zero WH, Camera Module, and preloaded SD card.

Google’s AIY Projects Kits

Google launched the AIY Projects Voice Kit last year, first as a cover gift with The MagPi magazine and later as a standalone product.

Makers needed to provide their own Raspberry Pi for the original kit. The new kits include everything you need, from Pi to SD card.

Within a DIY cardboard box, makers were able to assemble their own voice-activated AI assistant akin to the Amazon Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and Google’s own Google Home Assistant. The Voice Kit was an instant hit that spurred no end of maker videos and tutorials, including our own free tutorial for controlling a robot using voice commands.

Later in the year, the team followed up the success of the Voice Kit with the AIY Projects Vision Kit — the same cardboard box hosting a camera perfect for some pretty nifty image recognition projects.

For more on the AIY Voice Kit, here’s our release video hosted by the rather delightful Rob Zwetsloot.

AIY Projects adds natural human interaction to your Raspberry Pi
Check out the exclusive Google AIY Projects Kit that comes free with The MagPi 57! Grab yourself a copy in stores or online now: http://magpi.cc/2pI6IiQ This first AIY Projects kit taps into the Google Assistant SDK and Cloud Speech API using the AIY Projects Voice HAT (Hardware Accessory on Top) board, stereo microphone, and speaker (included free with the magazine).

AIY Projects 2

So what’s new with version 2 of the AIY Projects Voice Kit? The kit now includes the recently released Raspberry Pi Zero WH, our Zero W with added pre-soldered header pins for instant digital making accessibility. Purchasers of the kits will also get a micro SD card with preloaded OS to help them get started without having to set the card up themselves.

Google AIY Projects Vision Kit 2 Raspberry Pi

Everything you need to build your own Raspberry Pi-powered Google voice assistant

In the newly upgraded AIY Projects Vision Kit v1.2, makers are also treated to an official Raspberry Pi Camera Module v2, the latest model of our add-on camera.

“Everything you need to get started is right there in the box,” explains Billy Rutledge, Google’s Director of AIY Projects. “We knew from our research that even though makers are interested in AI, many felt that adding it to their projects was too difficult or required expensive hardware.”

Google is also hard at work producing AIY Projects companion apps for Android, iOS, and Chrome. The Android app is available now to coincide with the launch of the upgraded kits, with the other two due for release soon. The app supports wireless setup of the AIY Kit, though avid coders will still be able to hack theirs to better suit their projects.

Google has also updated the AIY Projects website with an AIY Models section highlighting a range of neural network projects for the kits.

Get your kit

The updated Voice and Vision Kits were announced last night, and in the US they are available now from Target. UK-based makers should be able to get their hands on them this summer — keep an eye on our social channels for updates and links.

The post AIY Projects 2: Google’s AIY Projects Kits get an upgrade appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Amazon S3 Update: New Storage Class and General Availability of S3 Select

2018-04-04 Jeff Barr

Post Syndicated from Jeff Barr original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/amazon-s3-update-new-storage-class-general-availability-of-s3-select/

I’ve got two big pieces of news for anyone who stores and retrieves data in Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3):

New S3 One Zone-IA Storage Class – This new storage class is 20% less expensive than the existing Standard-IA storage class. It is designed to be used to store data that does not need the extra level of protection provided by geographic redundancy.

General Availability of S3 Select – This unique retrieval option lets you retrieve subsets of data from S3 objects using simple SQL expressions, with the possibility for a 400% performance improvement in the process.

Let’s take a look at both!

S3 One Zone-IA (Infrequent Access) Storage Class
This new storage class stores data in a single AWS Availability Zone and is designed to provide eleven 9’s (99.99999999%) of data durability, just like the other S3 storage classes. Unlike those other classes, it is not designed to be resilient to the physical loss of an AZ due to major event such as an earthquake or a flood, and data could be lost in the unlikely event that an AZ is destroyed. S3 One Zone-IA storage gives you a lower cost option for secondary backups of on-premises data and for data that can be easily re-created. You can also use it as the target of S3 Cross-Region Replication from another AWS region.

You can specify the use of S3 One Zone-IA storage when you upload a new object to S3:

You can also make use of it as part of an S3 lifecycle rule:

You can set up a lifecycle rule that moves previous versions of an object to S3 One Zone-IA after 30 or more days:

And you can modify the storage class of an existing object:

You can also manage storage classes using the S3 API, CLI, and CloudFormation templates.

The S3 One Zone-IA storage class can be used in all public AWS regions. As I noted earlier, pricing is 20% lower than for the S3 Standard-IA storage class (see the S3 Pricing page for more info). There’s a 30 day minimum retention period, and a 128 KB minimum object size.

General Availability of S3 Select
Randall wrote a detailed introduction to S3 Select last year and showed you how you can use it to retrieve selected data from within S3 objects. During the preview we added support for server-side encryption and the ability to run queries from the S3 Console.

I used a CSV file of airport codes to exercise the new console functionality:

This file contains listings for over 9100 airports, so it makes for useful test data but it definitely does not test the limits of S3 Select in any way. I select the file, open the More menu, and choose Select from:

The console sets the file format and compression according to the file name and the encryption status. I set delimiter and click Show file preview to verify that my settings are correct. Then I click Next to proceed:

I type SQL expressions in the SQL editor and click Run SQL to issue the query:

Or:

I can also issue queries from the AWS SDKs. I initiate the select operation:

s3 = boto3.client('s3', region_name='us-west-2')

r = s3.select_object_content(
        Bucket='jbarr-us-west-2',
        Key='sample-data/airportCodes.csv',
        ExpressionType='SQL',
        Expression="select * from s3object s where s.\"Country (Name)\" like '%United States%'",
        InputSerialization = {'CSV': {"FileHeaderInfo": "Use"}},
        OutputSerialization = {'CSV': {}},
)

And then I process the stream of results:

for event in r['Payload']:
    if 'Records' in event:
        records = event['Records']['Payload'].decode('utf-8')
        print(records)
    elif 'Stats' in event:
        statsDetails = event['Stats']['Details']
        print("Stats details bytesScanned: ")
        print(statsDetails['BytesScanned'])
        print("Stats details bytesProcessed: ")
        print(statsDetails['BytesProcessed'])

S3 Select is available in all public regions and you can start using it today. Pricing is based on the amount of data scanned and the amount of data returned.

— Jeff;

Classify sensitive data in your environment using Amazon Macie

2018-04-04 Alexander Watson

Post Syndicated from Alexander Watson original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/classify-sensitive-data-in-your-environment-using-amazon-macie/

In this post, I’ll show you how to create a sample dataset for Amazon Macie, and how you can use Amazon Macie to implement data-centric compliance and security analytics in your Amazon S3 environment. I’ll also dive into the different kinds of credentials, document types, and PII detections supported by Macie. First, I’ll walk through creating a “getting started” sample set of artificial, generated data that you can use to test Macie capabilities and start building your own policies and alerts.

Create a realistic data sample set in S3

I’ll use amazon-macie-activity-generator, which we call “AMG” for short, a sample application developed by AWS that generates realistic content and accesses your test account to create the data. AMG uses AWS CloudFormation, AWS Lambda, and Python’s excellent Faker library to create a data set with artificial—but realistic—data classifications and access patterns to help test some of the features and capabilities of Macie. AMG is released under Amazon Software License 1.0, and we’ll accept pull requests on our GitHub repository and monitor any issues that are opened so we can try to fix bugs and consider new feature requests.

The following diagram shows a high level architecture overview of the components that will be created in your AWS account for AMG. For additional detail about these components and their relationships, review the CloudFormation setup script.

Depending on the data types specified in your JSON configuration template (details below), AMG will periodically generate artificial documents for the specified S3 target with a PutObject action. By default, the CloudFormation stack uses a configuration file that instructs AMG to create a new, private S3 bucket that can only be accessed by authorized AWS users/roles in the same account as the bucket. All the S3 objects with fake data in this bucket have a private ACL and inherit the bucket’s access control configuration. All generated objects feature the header in the example below, and AMG supports all fake data providers offered by https://faker.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html, as well as a few of AMG‘s own custom fake data providers requested by our customers: aws_creds, slack_creds, github_creds, facebook_creds, linux_shadow, rsa, linux_passwd, dsa, ec, pgp, cert, itin, swift_code, and cve.

# Sample Report - No identification of actual persons or places is # intended or should be inferred

74323 Julie Field Lake Joshuamouth, OR 30055-3905 1-196-191-4438x974 53001 Paul Union New John, HI 94740 Mastercard Amanda Wells 5135725008183484 09/26 CVV: 550

354-70-6172 242 George Plaza East Lawrencefurt, VA 37287-7620 GB73WAUS0628038988364 587 Silva Village Pearsonburgh, NM 11616-7231 LDNM1948227117807 American Express Brett Garza 347965534580275 05/20 CID: 4758

599.335.2742 JCB 15 digit Michael Arias 210069190253121 03/27 CVC: 861

Create your amazon-macie-activity-generator CloudFormation stack

You can deploy AMG in your AWS account by using either these methods:

Use the CloudFormation Template: https://s3.amazonaws.com/amazon-macie-activity-generator-us-east-1-fb58a9df3468/CloudFormationTemplate.yml
Or use this One-click CloudFormation launch stack.

Follow these steps:

Log in to the AWS Console in a region supported by Amazon Macie, which currently includes US East (N. Virginia), US West (Oregon).
Select the One-click CloudFormation launch stack, or launch CloudFormation using the template above.
Read our terms, select the Acknowledgement box, and then select Create.

Creating the data takes a few minutes, and you can periodically refresh CloudWatch to track progress.

Add the new sample data to Macie

Now, I’ll log into the Macie console and add the newly created sample data buckets for analysis by Macie.

Note: If you don’t explicitly specify a bucket for S3 targets in CloudFormation, AMG will use the S3 bucket that’s created by default for the stack, which will be printed out in the CloudFormation stack’s output.

To add buckets for data classification, follow these steps:

Log in to Amazon Macie.
Select Integrations, and then select Services.
Select your account, and then select Details from the Amazon S3 card.
Select your newly created buckets for Full classification, including existing data.

For additional details on configuring Macie, refer to our getting started documentation.

Macie classifies all historical and newly created data in the buckets created by AMG, and the data will be available in the Macie console as it’s classified. Typically, you can expect the data in the sample set to be classified within 60 minutes of the time it was selected for analysis.

Classifying objects with Macie

To see the objects in your test sample set, in Macie, open the Research tab, and then select the S3 Objects index. We’ll use the regular expression search capability in Macie to find any objects written to buckets that start with “amazon-macie-activity-generator-defaults3bucket”. To search for this, type the following text into the Macie search box and select the magnifying glass icon.

filesystem_metadata.bucket:/amazon-macie-activity-generator-defaults3bucket.*/

From here, you can see a nice breakdown of the kinds of objects that have been classified by Macie, as well as the object-specific details. Create an advanced search using Lucene Query Syntax, and save it as an alert to be matched against any newly created data.

Analyzing accesses to your test data

In addition to classifying data, Macie tracks all control plane and data plane accesses to your content using CloudTrail. To see accesses to your generated environment (created periodically by AMG to mimic user activity), on the Macie navigation bar, select Research, select the CloudTrail data index, and then use the following search to identify our generated role activity:

sessionName.key:/amazon-macie-activity-generator-LambdaFunction-.*/

From this search, you can dive into the user activity (IAM users, assumed roles, federated users, and so on), which is summarized in 5-minute aggregations (user sessions). For example, in the screen shot you can see that one of our AMG-generated users listed objects one time (ListObjects) and wrote 56 objects to S3 (PutObject) during a 5-minute period.

Macie alerts

Macie features both predictive (machine learning-based) and basic (rule-based) alerts, including alerts on unencrypted credentials being uploaded to S3 (because this activity might not follow compliance best practices), risky activity such as data exfiltration, and user-defined alerts that are based on saved searches. To see alerts that have been generated based on AMG‘s activity, on the Macie navigation bar, select Alerts.

AMG will continue to run, periodically uploading content to the specified S3 buckets. To stop AMG, delete the AMG CloudFormation stack and associated resources here.

What are the costs?

Macie has a free tier enabling up to 1GB of content to be analyzed per month at no cost to you. By default, AMG will write approximately 10MB of objects to Amazon S3 per day, and you will incur charges for data classification after crossing the 1GB monthly free tier. Running continuously, AMG will generate about 310MB of content per month (10MB/day x 31 days), which will stay below the free tier. Any data use above 1GB will be billed at the Macie public price of $5/GB. For more detail, see the Macie pricing documentation.

If you have feedback about this blog post, submit comments in the Comments section below. If you have questions about this blog post, start a new thread on the Amazon Macie forum or contact AWS Support.

Raspberry Pi aboard Pino, the smart sailboat

2018-04-04 Alex Bate

Post Syndicated from Alex Bate original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/pino-smart-sailing-boat/

As they sail aboard their floating game design studio Pino, Rekka Bellum and Devine Lu Linvega are starting to explore the use of Raspberry Pis. As part of an experimental development tool and a weather station, Pis are now aiding them on their nautical adventures!

Mar 2018: A Smart Sailboat
Pino is on its way to becoming a smart sailboat! Raspberry Pi is the ideal device for sailors, we hope to make many more projects with it. Also the projects continue still, but we have windows now yay!

Barometer

Using a haul of Pimoroni tech including the Enviro pHat, Scroll pHat HD and Mini Black HAT Hack3r, Rekka and Devine have been experimenting with using a Raspberry Pi Zero as an onboard barometer for their sailboat. On their Hundred Rabbits YouTube channel and website, the pair has documented their experimental setups. They have also built another Raspberry Pi rig for distraction-free work and development.

The official Raspberry Pi 7″ touch display, a Raspberry Pi 3B+, a Pimorni Blinkt, and a Poker II Keyboard make up Pino‘s experimental development station.

“The Pi computer is currently used only as an experimental development tool aboard Pino, but could readily be turned into a complete development platform, would our principal computers fail.” they explain, before going into the build process for the Raspberry Pi–powered barometer.

The use of solderless headers make this weather station an ideal build wherever space and tools are limited.

The barometer uses the sensor power of the Pimoroni Enviro HAT to measure atmospheric pressure, and a Raspberry Pi Zero displays this data on the Scroll pHAT HD. It thus advises the two travellers of oncoming storms. By taking advantage of the solderless header provided by the Sheffield-based pirates, the Hundred Rabbits team was able to put the device together with relative ease. They provide all information for the build here.

All aboard Pino

If you’d like to follow the journey of Rekka Bellum and Devine Lu Linvega as they continue to travel the oceans aboard Pino, you can follow them on YouTube or Twitter, and via their website.

We are Hundred Rabbits
This is us, this what we do, and these are our intentions! We live, and work from our sailboat Pino. Traveling helps us stay creative, and we feed what we see back into our work. We make games, art, books and music under the studio name ‘Hundred Rabbits.’

The post Raspberry Pi aboard Pino, the smart sailboat appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Performing Unit Testing in an AWS CodeStar Project

2018-03-29 Jerry Mathen Jacob

Post Syndicated from Jerry Mathen Jacob original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/devops/performing-unit-testing-in-an-aws-codestar-project/

In this blog post, I will show how you can perform unit testing as a part of your AWS CodeStar project. AWS CodeStar helps you quickly develop, build, and deploy applications on AWS. With AWS CodeStar, you can set up your continuous delivery (CD) toolchain and manage your software development from one place.

Because unit testing tests individual units of application code, it is helpful for quickly identifying and isolating issues. As a part of an automated CI/CD process, it can also be used to prevent bad code from being deployed into production.

Many of the AWS CodeStar project templates come preconfigured with a unit testing framework so that you can start deploying your code with more confidence. The unit testing is configured to run in the provided build stage so that, if the unit tests do not pass, the code is not deployed. For a list of AWS CodeStar project templates that include unit testing, see AWS CodeStar Project Templates in the AWS CodeStar User Guide.

The scenario

As a big fan of superhero movies, I decided to list my favorites and ask my friends to vote on theirs by using a WebService endpoint I created. The example I use is a Python web service running on AWS Lambda with AWS CodeCommit as the code repository. CodeCommit is a fully managed source control system that hosts Git repositories and works with all Git-based tools.

Here’s how you can create the WebService endpoint:

For code edits I will choose AWS Cloud9, which is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) that you use to write, run, and debug code.

Here are the other tasks required by my scenario:

Create a database table where the votes can be stored and retrieved as needed.
Update the logic in the Lambda function that was created for posting and getting the votes.
Update the unit tests (of course!) to verify that the logic works as expected.

For a database table, I’ve chosen Amazon DynamoDB, which offers a fast and flexible NoSQL database.

Getting set up on AWS Cloud9

From the AWS CodeStar console, go to the AWS Cloud9 console, which should take you to your project code. I will open up a terminal at the top-level folder under which I will set up my environment and required libraries.

Use the following command to set the PYTHONPATH environment variable on the terminal.

export PYTHONPATH=/home/ec2-user/environment/vote-your-movie

You should now be able to use the following command to execute the unit tests in your project.

python -m unittest discover vote-your-movie/tests

Start coding

Now that you have set up your local environment and have a copy of your code, add a DynamoDB table to the project by defining it through a template file. Open template.yml, which is the Serverless Application Model (SAM) template file. This template extends AWS CloudFormation to provide a simplified way of defining the Amazon API Gateway APIs, AWS Lambda functions, and Amazon DynamoDB tables required by your serverless application.

AWSTemplateFormatVersion: 2010-09-09
Transform:
- AWS::Serverless-2016-10-31
- AWS::CodeStar

Parameters:
  ProjectId:
    Type: String
    Description: CodeStar projectId used to associate new resources to team members

Resources:
  # The DB table to store the votes.
  MovieVoteTable:
    Type: AWS::Serverless::SimpleTable
    Properties:
      PrimaryKey:
        # Name of the "Candidate" is the partition key of the table.
        Name: Candidate
        Type: String
  # Creating a new lambda function for retrieving and storing votes.
  MovieVoteLambda:
    Type: AWS::Serverless::Function
    Properties:
      Handler: index.handler
      Runtime: python3.6
      Environment:
        # Setting environment variables for your lambda function.
        Variables:
          TABLE_NAME: !Ref "MovieVoteTable"
          TABLE_REGION: !Ref "AWS::Region"
      Role:
        Fn::ImportValue:
          !Join ['-', [!Ref 'ProjectId', !Ref 'AWS::Region', 'LambdaTrustRole']]
      Events:
        GetEvent:
          Type: Api
          Properties:
            Path: /
            Method: get
        PostEvent:
          Type: Api
          Properties:
            Path: /
            Method: post

We’ll use Python’s boto3 library to connect to AWS services. And we’ll use Python’s mock library to mock AWS service calls for our unit tests.
Use the following command to install these libraries:

pip install --upgrade boto3 mock -t .

Add these libraries to the buildspec.yml, which is the YAML file that is required for CodeBuild to execute.

version: 0.2

phases:
  install:
    commands:

      # Upgrade AWS CLI to the latest version
      - pip install --upgrade awscli boto3 mock

  pre_build:
    commands:

      # Discover and run unit tests in the 'tests' directory. For more information, see <https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.html#test-discovery>
      - python -m unittest discover tests

  build:
    commands:

      # Use AWS SAM to package the application by using AWS CloudFormation
      - aws cloudformation package --template template.yml --s3-bucket $S3_BUCKET --output-template template-export.yml

artifacts:
  type: zip
  files:
    - template-export.yml

Open the index.py where we can write the simple voting logic for our Lambda function.

import json
import datetime
import boto3
import os

table_name = os.environ['TABLE_NAME']
table_region = os.environ['TABLE_REGION']

VOTES_TABLE = boto3.resource('dynamodb', region_name=table_region).Table(table_name)
CANDIDATES = {"A": "Black Panther", "B": "Captain America: Civil War", "C": "Guardians of the Galaxy", "D": "Thor: Ragnarok"}

def handler(event, context):
    if event['httpMethod'] == 'GET':
        resp = VOTES_TABLE.scan()
        return {'statusCode': 200,
                'body': json.dumps({item['Candidate']: int(item['Votes']) for item in resp['Items']}),
                'headers': {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}}

    elif event['httpMethod'] == 'POST':
        try:
            body = json.loads(event['body'])
        except:
            return {'statusCode': 400,
                    'body': 'Invalid input! Expecting a JSON.',
                    'headers': {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}}
        if 'candidate' not in body:
            return {'statusCode': 400,
                    'body': 'Missing "candidate" in request.',
                    'headers': {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}}
        if body['candidate'] not in CANDIDATES.keys():
            return {'statusCode': 400,
                    'body': 'You must vote for one of the following candidates - {}.'.format(get_allowed_candidates()),
                    'headers': {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}}

        resp = VOTES_TABLE.update_item(
            Key={'Candidate': CANDIDATES.get(body['candidate'])},
            UpdateExpression='ADD Votes :incr',
            ExpressionAttributeValues={':incr': 1},
            ReturnValues='ALL_NEW'
        )
        return {'statusCode': 200,
                'body': "{} now has {} votes".format(CANDIDATES.get(body['candidate']), resp['Attributes']['Votes']),
                'headers': {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}}

def get_allowed_candidates():
    l = []
    for key in CANDIDATES:
        l.append("'{}' for '{}'".format(key, CANDIDATES.get(key)))
    return ", ".join(l)

What our code basically does is take in the HTTPS request call as an event. If it is an HTTP GET request, it gets the votes result from the table. If it is an HTTP POST request, it sets a vote for the candidate of choice. We also validate the inputs in the POST request to filter out requests that seem malicious. That way, only valid calls are stored in the table.

In the example code provided, we use a CANDIDATES variable to store our candidates, but you can store the candidates in a JSON file and use Python’s json library instead.

Let’s update the tests now. Under the tests folder, open the test_handler.py and modify it to verify the logic.

import os
# Some mock environment variables that would be used by the mock for DynamoDB
os.environ['TABLE_NAME'] = "MockHelloWorldTable"
os.environ['TABLE_REGION'] = "us-east-1"

# The library containing our logic.
import index

# Boto3's core library
import botocore
# For handling JSON.
import json
# Unit test library
import unittest
## Getting StringIO based on your setup.
try:
    from StringIO import StringIO
except ImportError:
    from io import StringIO
## Python mock library
from mock import patch, call
from decimal import Decimal

@patch('botocore.client.BaseClient._make_api_call')
class TestCandidateVotes(unittest.TestCase):

    ## Test the HTTP GET request flow. 
    ## We expect to get back a successful response with results of votes from the table (mocked).
    def test_get_votes(self, boto_mock):
        # Input event to our method to test.
        expected_event = {'httpMethod': 'GET'}
        # The mocked values in our DynamoDB table.
        items_in_db = [{'Candidate': 'Black Panther', 'Votes': Decimal('3')},
                        {'Candidate': 'Captain America: Civil War', 'Votes': Decimal('8')},
                        {'Candidate': 'Guardians of the Galaxy', 'Votes': Decimal('8')},
                        {'Candidate': "Thor: Ragnarok", 'Votes': Decimal('1')}
                    ]
        # The mocked DynamoDB response.
        expected_ddb_response = {'Items': items_in_db}
        # The mocked response we expect back by calling DynamoDB through boto.
        response_body = botocore.response.StreamingBody(StringIO(str(expected_ddb_response)),
                                                        len(str(expected_ddb_response)))
        # Setting the expected value in the mock.
        boto_mock.side_effect = [expected_ddb_response]
        # Expecting that there would be a call to DynamoDB Scan function during execution with these parameters.
        expected_calls = [call('Scan', {'TableName': os.environ['TABLE_NAME']})]

        # Call the function to test.
        result = index.handler(expected_event, {})

        # Run unit test assertions to verify the expected calls to mock have occurred and verify the response.
        assert result.get('headers').get('Content-Type') == 'application/json'
        assert result.get('statusCode') == 200

        result_body = json.loads(result.get('body'))
        # Verifying that the results match to that from the table.
        assert len(result_body) == len(items_in_db)
        for i in range(len(result_body)):
            assert result_body.get(items_in_db[i].get("Candidate")) == int(items_in_db[i].get("Votes"))

        assert boto_mock.call_count == 1
        boto_mock.assert_has_calls(expected_calls)

    ## Test the HTTP POST request flow that places a vote for a selected candidate.
    ## We expect to get back a successful response with a confirmation message.
    def test_place_valid_candidate_vote(self, boto_mock):
        # Input event to our method to test.
        expected_event = {'httpMethod': 'POST', 'body': "{\"candidate\": \"D\"}"}
        # The mocked response in our DynamoDB table.
        expected_ddb_response = {'Attributes': {'Candidate': "Thor: Ragnarok", 'Votes': Decimal('2')}}
        # The mocked response we expect back by calling DynamoDB through boto.
        response_body = botocore.response.StreamingBody(StringIO(str(expected_ddb_response)),
                                                        len(str(expected_ddb_response)))
        # Setting the expected value in the mock.
        boto_mock.side_effect = [expected_ddb_response]
        # Expecting that there would be a call to DynamoDB UpdateItem function during execution with these parameters.
        expected_calls = [call('UpdateItem', {
                                                'TableName': os.environ['TABLE_NAME'], 
                                                'Key': {'Candidate': 'Thor: Ragnarok'},
                                                'UpdateExpression': 'ADD Votes :incr',
                                                'ExpressionAttributeValues': {':incr': 1},
                                                'ReturnValues': 'ALL_NEW'
                                            })]
        # Call the function to test.
        result = index.handler(expected_event, {})
        # Run unit test assertions to verify the expected calls to mock have occurred and verify the response.
        assert result.get('headers').get('Content-Type') == 'application/json'
        assert result.get('statusCode') == 200

        assert result.get('body') == "{} now has {} votes".format(
            expected_ddb_response['Attributes']['Candidate'], 
            expected_ddb_response['Attributes']['Votes'])

        assert boto_mock.call_count == 1
        boto_mock.assert_has_calls(expected_calls)

    ## Test the HTTP POST request flow that places a vote for an non-existant candidate.
    ## We expect to get back a successful response with a confirmation message.
    def test_place_invalid_candidate_vote(self, boto_mock):
        # Input event to our method to test.
        # The valid IDs for the candidates are A, B, C, and D
        expected_event = {'httpMethod': 'POST', 'body': "{\"candidate\": \"E\"}"}
        # Call the function to test.
        result = index.handler(expected_event, {})
        # Run unit test assertions to verify the expected calls to mock have occurred and verify the response.
        assert result.get('headers').get('Content-Type') == 'application/json'
        assert result.get('statusCode') == 400
        assert result.get('body') == 'You must vote for one of the following candidates - {}.'.format(index.get_allowed_candidates())

    ## Test the HTTP POST request flow that places a vote for a selected candidate but associated with an invalid key in the POST body.
    ## We expect to get back a failed (400) response with an appropriate error message.
    def test_place_invalid_data_vote(self, boto_mock):
        # Input event to our method to test.
        # "name" is not the expected input key.
        expected_event = {'httpMethod': 'POST', 'body': "{\"name\": \"D\"}"}
        # Call the function to test.
        result = index.handler(expected_event, {})
        # Run unit test assertions to verify the expected calls to mock have occurred and verify the response.
        assert result.get('headers').get('Content-Type') == 'application/json'
        assert result.get('statusCode') == 400
        assert result.get('body') == 'Missing "candidate" in request.'

    ## Test the HTTP POST request flow that places a vote for a selected candidate but not as a JSON string which the body of the request expects.
    ## We expect to get back a failed (400) response with an appropriate error message.
    def test_place_malformed_json_vote(self, boto_mock):
        # Input event to our method to test.
        # "body" receives a string rather than a JSON string.
        expected_event = {'httpMethod': 'POST', 'body': "Thor: Ragnarok"}
        # Call the function to test.
        result = index.handler(expected_event, {})
        # Run unit test assertions to verify the expected calls to mock have occurred and verify the response.
        assert result.get('headers').get('Content-Type') == 'application/json'
        assert result.get('statusCode') == 400
        assert result.get('body') == 'Invalid input! Expecting a JSON.'

if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()

I am keeping the code samples well commented so that it’s clear what each unit test accomplishes. It tests the success conditions and the failure paths that are handled in the logic.

In my unit tests I use the patch decorator (@patch) in the mock library. @patch helps mock the function you want to call (in this case, the botocore library’s _make_api_call function in the BaseClient class).
Before we commit our changes, let’s run the tests locally. On the terminal, run the tests again. If all the unit tests pass, you should expect to see a result like this:

You:~/environment $ python -m unittest discover vote-your-movie/tests
.....
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 5 tests in 0.003s

OK
You:~/environment $

Upload to AWS

Now that the tests have passed, it’s time to commit and push the code to source repository!

Add your changes

From the terminal, go to the project’s folder and use the following command to verify the changes you are about to push.

git status

To add the modified files only, use the following command:

git add -u

Commit your changes

To commit the changes (with a message), use the following command:

git commit -m "Logic and tests for the voting webservice."

Push your changes to AWS CodeCommit

To push your committed changes to CodeCommit, use the following command:

git push

In the AWS CodeStar console, you can see your changes flowing through the pipeline and being deployed. There are also links in the AWS CodeStar console that take you to this project’s build runs so you can see your tests running on AWS CodeBuild. The latest link under the Build Runs table takes you to the logs.

After the deployment is complete, AWS CodeStar should now display the AWS Lambda function and DynamoDB table created and synced with this project. The Project link in the AWS CodeStar project’s navigation bar displays the AWS resources linked to this project.

Because this is a new database table, there should be no data in it. So, let’s put in some votes. You can download Postman to test your application endpoint for POST and GET calls. The endpoint you want to test is the URL displayed under Application endpoints in the AWS CodeStar console.

Now let’s open Postman and look at the results. Let’s create some votes through POST requests. Based on this example, a valid vote has a value of A, B, C, or D.
Here’s what a successful POST request looks like:

Here’s what it looks like if I use some value other than A, B, C, or D:

Now I am going to use a GET request to fetch the results of the votes from the database.

And that’s it! You have now created a simple voting web service using AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, and DynamoDB and used unit tests to verify your logic so that you ship good code.
Happy coding!

Malcolm: Usability improvements in GCC 8

2018-03-15 jake

Post Syndicated from jake original https://lwn.net/Articles/749450/rss

Over on the Red Hat Developer Program blog, David Malcolm describes a number of usability improvements that he has made for the upcoming GCC 8 release. Malcolm has made a number of the C/C++ compiler error messages much more helpful, including adding hints for integrated development environments (IDEs) and other tools to suggest fixes for syntax and other kinds of errors. “[…] the code is fine, but, as is common with fragments of code seen on random websites, it’s missing #include directives. If you simply copy this into a new file and try to compile it as-is, it fails.

This can be frustrating when copying and pasting examples – off the top of your head, which header files are needed by the above? – so for gcc 8 I’ve added hints telling you which header files are missing (for the most common cases).” He has various examples showing what the new error messages and hints look like in the blog post.

Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ on sale now at $35

2018-03-14 Eben Upton

Post Syndicated from Eben Upton original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspberry-pi-3-model-bplus-sale-now-35/

Here’s a long post. We think you’ll find it interesting. If you don’t have time to read it all, we recommend you watch this video, which will fill you in with everything you need, and then head straight to the product page to fill yer boots. (We recommend the video anyway, even if you do have time for a long read. ‘Cos it’s fab.)

A BRAND-NEW PI FOR π DAY
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is now on sale now for $35, featuring: – A 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU – Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2 – Faster Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0) – Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT) – Improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting – Improved thermal management Alongside a 200MHz increase in peak CPU clock frequency, we have roughly three times the wired and wireless network throughput, and the ability to sustain high performance for much longer periods.

If you’ve been a Raspberry Pi watcher for a while now, you’ll have a bit of a feel for how we update our products. Just over two years ago, we released Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. This was our first 64-bit product, and our first product to feature integrated wireless connectivity. Since then, we’ve sold over nine million Raspberry Pi 3 units (we’ve sold 19 million Raspberry Pis in total), which have been put to work in schools, homes, offices and factories all over the globe.

Those Raspberry Pi watchers will know that we have a history of releasing improved versions of our products a couple of years into their lives. The first example was Raspberry Pi 1 Model B+, which added two additional USB ports, introduced our current form factor, and rolled up a variety of other feedback from the community. Raspberry Pi 2 didn’t get this treatment, of course, as it was superseded after only one year; but it feels like it’s high time that Raspberry Pi 3 received the “plus” treatment.

So, without further ado, Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is now on sale for $35 (the same price as the existing Raspberry Pi 3 Model B), featuring:

A 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU
Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2
Faster Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0)
Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT)
Improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting
Improved thermal management

Alongside a 200MHz increase in peak CPU clock frequency, we have roughly three times the wired and wireless network throughput, and the ability to sustain high performance for much longer periods.

Behold the shiny

Raspberry Pi 3B+ is available to buy today from our network of Approved Resellers.

New features, new chips

Roger Thornton did the design work on this revision of the Raspberry Pi. Here, he and I have a chat about what’s new.

Introducing the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ is now on sale now for $35, featuring: – A 1.4GHz 64-bit quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 CPU – Dual-band 802.11ac wireless LAN and Bluetooth 4.2 – Faster Ethernet (Gigabit Ethernet over USB 2.0) – Power-over-Ethernet support (with separate PoE HAT) – Improved PXE network and USB mass-storage booting – Improved thermal management Alongside a 200MHz increase in peak CPU clock frequency, we have roughly three times the wired and wireless network throughput, and the ability to sustain high performance for much longer periods.

The new product is built around BCM2837B0, an updated version of the 64-bit Broadcom application processor used in Raspberry Pi 3B, which incorporates power integrity optimisations, and a heat spreader (that’s the shiny metal bit you can see in the photos). Together these allow us to reach higher clock frequencies (or to run at lower voltages to reduce power consumption), and to more accurately monitor and control the temperature of the chip.

Dual-band wireless LAN and Bluetooth are provided by the Cypress CYW43455 “combo” chip, connected to a Proant PCB antenna similar to the one used on Raspberry Pi Zero W. Compared to its predecessor, Raspberry Pi 3B+ delivers somewhat better performance in the 2.4GHz band, and far better performance in the 5GHz band, as demonstrated by these iperf results from LibreELEC developer Milhouse.

	Tx bandwidth (Mb/s)	Rx bandwidth (Mb/s)
Raspberry Pi 3B	35.7	35.6
Raspberry Pi 3B+ (2.4GHz)	46.7	46.3
Raspberry Pi 3B+ (5GHz)	102	102

The wireless circuitry is encapsulated under a metal shield, rather fetchingly embossed with our logo. This has allowed us to certify the entire board as a radio module under FCC rules, which in turn will significantly reduce the cost of conformance testing Raspberry Pi-based products.

We’ll be teaching metalwork next.

Previous Raspberry Pi devices have used the LAN951x family of chips, which combine a USB hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller. For Raspberry Pi 3B+, Microchip have supported us with an upgraded version, LAN7515, which supports Gigabit Ethernet. While the USB 2.0 connection to the application processor limits the available bandwidth, we still see roughly a threefold increase in throughput compared to Raspberry Pi 3B. Again, here are some typical iperf results.

	Tx bandwidth (Mb/s)	Rx bandwidth (Mb/s)
Raspberry Pi 3B	94.1	95.5
Raspberry Pi 3B+	315	315

We use a magjack that supports Power over Ethernet (PoE), and bring the relevant signals to a new 4-pin header. We will shortly launch a PoE HAT which can generate the 5V necessary to power the Raspberry Pi from the 48V PoE supply.

There… are… four… pins!

Coming soon to a Raspberry Pi 3B+ near you

Raspberry Pi 3B was our first product to support PXE Ethernet boot. Testing it in the wild shook out a number of compatibility issues with particular switches and traffic environments. Gordon has rolled up fixes for all known issues into the BCM2837B0 boot ROM, and PXE boot is now enabled by default.

Clocking, voltages and thermals

The improved power integrity of the BCM2837B0 package, and the improved regulation accuracy of our new MaxLinear MxL7704 power management IC, have allowed us to tune our clocking and voltage rules for both better peak performance and longer-duration sustained performance.

Below 70°C, we use the improvements to increase the core frequency to 1.4GHz. Above 70°C, we drop to 1.2GHz, and use the improvements to decrease the core voltage, increasing the period of time before we reach our 80°C thermal throttle; the reduction in power consumption is such that many use cases will never reach the throttle. Like a modern smartphone, we treat the thermal mass of the device as a resource, to be spent carefully with the goal of optimising user experience.

This graph, courtesy of Gareth Halfacree, demonstrates that Raspberry Pi 3B+ runs faster and at a lower temperature for the duration of an eight‑minute quad‑core Sysbench CPU test.

Note that Raspberry Pi 3B+ does consume substantially more power than its predecessor. We strongly encourage you to use a high-quality 2.5A power supply, such as the official Raspberry Pi Universal Power Supply.

FAQs

We’ll keep updating this list over the next couple of days, but here are a few to get you started.

Are you discontinuing earlier Raspberry Pi models?

No. We have a lot of industrial customers who will want to stick with the existing products for the time being. We’ll keep building these models for as long as there’s demand. Raspberry Pi 1B+, Raspberry Pi 2B, and Raspberry Pi 3B will continue to sell for $25, $35, and $35 respectively.

What about Model A+?

Raspberry Pi 1A+ continues to be the $20 entry-level “big” Raspberry Pi for the time being. We are considering the possibility of producing a Raspberry Pi 3A+ in due course.

What about the Compute Module?

CM1, CM3 and CM3L will continue to be available. We may offer versions of CM3 and CM3L with BCM2837B0 in due course, depending on customer demand.

Are you still using VideoCore?

Yes. VideoCore IV 3D is the only publicly-documented 3D graphics core for ARM‑based SoCs, and we want to make Raspberry Pi more open over time, not less.

Credits

A project like this requires a vast amount of focused work from a large team over an extended period. Particular credit is due to Roger Thornton, who designed the board and ran the exhaustive (and exhausting) RF compliance campaign, and to the team at the Sony UK Technology Centre in Pencoed, South Wales. A partial list of others who made major direct contributions to the BCM2837B0 chip program, CYW43455 integration, LAN7515 and MxL7704 developments, and Raspberry Pi 3B+ itself follows:

James Adams, David Armour, Jonathan Bell, Maria Blazquez, Jamie Brogan-Shaw, Mike Buffham, Rob Campling, Cindy Cao, Victor Carmon, KK Chan, Nick Chase, Nigel Cheetham, Scott Clark, Nigel Clift, Dominic Cobley, Peter Coyle, John Cronk, Di Dai, Kurt Dennis, David Doyle, Andrew Edwards, Phil Elwell, John Ferdinand, Doug Freegard, Ian Furlong, Shawn Guo, Philip Harrison, Jason Hicks, Stefan Ho, Andrew Hoare, Gordon Hollingworth, Tuomas Hollman, EikPei Hu, James Hughes, Andy Hulbert, Anand Jain, David John, Prasanna Kerekoppa, Shaik Labeeb, Trevor Latham, Steve Le, David Lee, David Lewsey, Sherman Li, Xizhe Li, Simon Long, Fu Luo Larson, Juan Martinez, Sandhya Menon, Ben Mercer, James Mills, Max Passell, Mark Perry, Eric Phiri, Ashwin Rao, Justin Rees, James Reilly, Matt Rowley, Akshaye Sama, Ian Saturley, Serge Schneider, Manuel Sedlmair, Shawn Shadburn, Veeresh Shivashimper, Graham Smith, Ben Stephens, Mike Stimson, Yuree Tchong, Stuart Thomson, John Wadsworth, Ian Watch, Sarah Williams, Jason Zhu.

If you’re not on this list and think you should be, please let me know, and accept my apologies.

The post Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ on sale now at $35 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

Serverless Dynamic Web Pages in AWS: Provisioned with CloudFormation

2018-03-10 AWS Admin

Post Syndicated from AWS Admin original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/architecture/serverless-dynamic-web-pages-in-aws-provisioned-with-cloudformation/

***This blog is authored by Mike Okner of Monsanto, an AWS customer. It originally appeared on the Monsanto company blog. Minor edits were made to the original post.***

Recently, I was looking to create a status page app to monitor a few important internal services. I wanted this app to be as lightweight, reliable, and hassle-free as possible, so using a “serverless” architecture that doesn’t require any patching or other maintenance was quite appealing.

I also don’t deploy anything in a production AWS environment outside of some sort of template (usually CloudFormation) as a rule. I don’t want to have to come back to something I created ad hoc in the console after 6 months and try to recall exactly how I architected all of the resources. I’ll inevitably forget something and create more problems before solving the original one. So building the status page in a template was a requirement.

The Design
I settled on a design using two Lambda functions, both written in Python 3.6.

The first Lambda function makes requests out to a list of important services and writes their current status to a DynamoDB table. This function is executed once per minute via CloudWatch Event Rule.

The second Lambda function reads each service’s status & uptime information from DynamoDB and renders a Jinja template. This function is behind an API Gateway that has been configured to return text/html instead of its default application/json Content-Type.

The CloudFormation Template
AWS provides a Serverless Application Model template transformer to streamline the templating of Lambda + API Gateway designs, but it assumes (like everything else about the API Gateway) that you’re actually serving an API that returns JSON content. So, unfortunately, it won’t work for this use-case because we want to return HTML content. Instead, we’ll have to enumerate every resource like usual.

The Skeleton
We’ll be using YAML for the template in this example. I find it easier to read than JSON, but you can easily convert between the two with a converter if you disagree.

---
AWSTemplateFormatVersion: '2010-09-09'
Description: Serverless status page app
Resources:
  # [...Resources]

The Status-Checker Lambda Resource
This one is triggered on a schedule by CloudWatch, and looks like:

# Status Checker Lambda
CheckerLambda:
  Type: AWS::Lambda::Function
  Properties:
    Code: ./lambda.zip
    Environment:
      Variables:
        TABLE_NAME: !Ref DynamoTable
    Handler: checker.handler
    Role:
      Fn::GetAtt:
      - CheckerLambdaRole
      - Arn
    Runtime: python3.6
    Timeout: 45
CheckerLambdaRole:
  Type: AWS::IAM::Role
  Properties:
    ManagedPolicyArns:
    - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonDynamoDBFullAccess
    - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole
    AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
      Version: '2012-10-17'
      Statement:
      - Action:
        - sts:AssumeRole
        Effect: Allow
        Principal:
          Service:
          - lambda.amazonaws.com
CheckerLambdaTimer:
  Type: AWS::Events::Rule
  Properties:
    ScheduleExpression: rate(1 minute)
    Targets:
    - Id: CheckerLambdaTimerLambdaTarget
      Arn:
        Fn::GetAtt:
        - CheckerLambda
        - Arn
CheckerLambdaTimerPermission:
  Type: AWS::Lambda::Permission
  Properties:
    Action: lambda:invokeFunction
    FunctionName: !Ref CheckerLambda
    SourceArn:
      Fn::GetAtt:
      - CheckerLambdaTimer
      - Arn
    Principal: events.amazonaws.com

Let’s break that down a bit.

The CheckerLambda is the actual Lambda function. The Code section is a local path to a ZIP file containing the code and its dependencies. I’m using CloudFormation’s packaging feature to automatically push the deployable to S3.

The CheckerLambdaRole is the IAM role the Lambda will assume which grants it access to DynamoDB in addition to the usual Lambda logging permissions.

The CheckerLambdaTimer is the CloudWatch Events Rule that triggers the checker to run once per minute.

The CheckerLambdaTimerPermission grants CloudWatch the ability to invoke the checker Lambda function on its interval.

The Web Page Gateway
The API Gateway handles incoming requests for the web page, invokes the Lambda, and then returns the Lambda’s results as HTML content. Its template looks like:

# API Gateway for Web Page Lambda
PageGateway:
  Type: AWS::ApiGateway::RestApi
  Properties:
    Name: Service Checker Gateway
PageResource:
  Type: AWS::ApiGateway::Resource
  Properties:
    RestApiId: !Ref PageGateway
    ParentId:
      Fn::GetAtt:
      - PageGateway
      - RootResourceId
    PathPart: page
PageGatewayMethod:
  Type: AWS::ApiGateway::Method
  Properties:
    AuthorizationType: NONE
    HttpMethod: GET
    Integration:
      Type: AWS
      IntegrationHttpMethod: POST
      Uri:
        Fn::Sub: arn:aws:apigateway:${AWS::Region}:lambda:path/2015-03-31/functions/${WebRenderLambda.Arn}/invocations
      RequestTemplates:
        application/json: |
          {
              "method": "$context.httpMethod",
              "body" : $input.json('$'),
              "headers": {
                  #foreach($param in $input.params().header.keySet())
                  "$param": "$util.escapeJavaScript($input.params().header.get($param))"
                  #if($foreach.hasNext),#end
                  #end
              }
          }
      IntegrationResponses:
      - StatusCode: 200
        ResponseParameters:
          method.response.header.Content-Type: "'text/html'"
        ResponseTemplates:
          text/html: "$input.path('$')"
    ResourceId: !Ref PageResource
    RestApiId: !Ref PageGateway
    MethodResponses:
    - StatusCode: 200
      ResponseParameters:
        method.response.header.Content-Type: true
PageGatewayProdStage:
  Type: AWS::ApiGateway::Stage
  Properties:
    DeploymentId: !Ref PageGatewayDeployment
    RestApiId: !Ref PageGateway
    StageName: Prod
PageGatewayDeployment:
  Type: AWS::ApiGateway::Deployment
  DependsOn: PageGatewayMethod
  Properties:
    RestApiId: !Ref PageGateway
    Description: PageGateway deployment
    StageName: Stage

There’s a lot going on here, but the real meat is in the PageGatewayMethod section. There are a couple properties that deviate from the default which is why we couldn’t use the SAM transformer.

First, we’re passing request headers through to the Lambda in theRequestTemplates section. I’m doing this so I can validate incoming auth headers. The API Gateway can do some types of auth, but I found it easier to check auth myself in the Lambda function since the Gateway is designed to handle API calls and not browser requests.

Next, note that in the IntegrationResponses section we’re defining the Content-Type header to be ‘text/html’ (with single-quotes) and defining the ResponseTemplate to be $input.path(‘$’). This is what makes the request render as a HTML page in your browser instead of just raw text.

Due to the StageName and PathPart values in the other sections, your actual page will be accessible at https://someId.execute-api.region.amazonaws.com/Prod/page. I have the page behind an existing reverse-proxy and give it a saner URL for end-users. The reverse proxy also attaches the auth header I mentioned above. If that header isn’t present, the Lambda will render an error page instead so the proxy can’t be bypassed.

The Web Page Rendering Lambda
This Lambda is invoked by calls to the API Gateway and looks like:

# Web Page Lambda
WebRenderLambda:
  Type: AWS::Lambda::Function
  Properties:
    Code: ./lambda.zip
    Environment:
      Variables:
        TABLE_NAME: !Ref DynamoTable
    Handler: web.handler
    Role:
      Fn::GetAtt:
      - WebRenderLambdaRole
      - Arn
    Runtime: python3.6
    Timeout: 30
WebRenderLambdaRole:
  Type: AWS::IAM::Role
  Properties:
    ManagedPolicyArns:
    - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/AmazonDynamoDBReadOnlyAccess
    - arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AWSLambdaBasicExecutionRole
    AssumeRolePolicyDocument:
      Version: '2012-10-17'
      Statement:
      - Action:
        - sts:AssumeRole
        Effect: Allow
        Principal:
          Service:
          - lambda.amazonaws.com
WebRenderLambdaGatewayPermission:
  Type: AWS::Lambda::Permission
  Properties:
    FunctionName: !Ref WebRenderLambda
    Action: lambda:invokeFunction
    Principal: apigateway.amazonaws.com
    SourceArn:
      Fn::Sub:
      - arn:aws:execute-api:${AWS::Region}:${AWS::AccountId}:${__ApiId__}/*/*/*
      - __ApiId__: !Ref PageGateway

The WebRenderLambda and WebRenderLambdaRole should look familiar.

The WebRenderLambdaGatewayPermission is similar to the Status Checker’s CloudWatch permission, only this time it allows the API Gateway to invoke this Lambda.

The DynamoDB Table
This one is straightforward.

# DynamoDB table
DynamoTable:
  Type: AWS::DynamoDB::Table
  Properties:
    AttributeDefinitions:
    - AttributeName: name
      AttributeType: S
    ProvisionedThroughput:
      WriteCapacityUnits: 1
      ReadCapacityUnits: 1
    TableName: status-page-checker-results
    KeySchema:
    - KeyType: HASH
      AttributeName: name

The Deployment
We’ve made it this far defining every resource in a template that we can check in to version control, so we might as well script the deployment as well rather than manually manage the CloudFormation Stack via the AWS web console.

Since I’m using the packaging feature, I first run:

$ aws cloudformation package \
    --template-file template.yaml \
    --s3-bucket <some-bucket-name> \
    --output-template-file template-packaged.yaml
Uploading to 34cd6e82c5e8205f9b35e71afd9e1548 1922559 / 1922559.0 (100.00%) Successfully packaged artifacts and wrote output template to file template-packaged.yaml.

Then to deploy the template (whether new or modified), I run:

$ aws cloudformation deploy \
    --region '<aws-region>' \
    --template-file template-packaged.yaml \
    --stack-name '<some-name>' \
    --capabilities CAPABILITY_IAM
Waiting for changeset to be created.. Waiting for stack create/update to complete Successfully created/updated stack - <some-name>

And that’s it! You’ve just created a dynamic web page that will never require you to SSH anywhere, patch a server, recover from a disaster after Amazon terminates your unhealthy EC2, or any other number of pitfalls that are now the problem of some ops person at AWS. And you can reproduce deployments and make changes with confidence because everything is defined in the template and can be tracked in version control.

How to Use Bucket Policies and Apply Defense-in-Depth to Help Secure Your Amazon S3 Data

2018-03-07 Rajat Ravinder Varuni

Post Syndicated from Rajat Ravinder Varuni original https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/security/how-to-use-bucket-policies-and-apply-defense-in-depth-to-help-secure-your-amazon-s3-data/

Amazon S3 provides comprehensive security and compliance capabilities that meet even the most stringent regulatory requirements. It gives you flexibility in the way you manage data for cost optimization, access control, and compliance. However, because the service is flexible, a user could accidentally configure buckets in a manner that is not secure. For example, let’s say you uploaded files to an Amazon S3 bucket with public read permissions, even though you intended only to share this file with a colleague or a partner. Although this might have accomplished your task to share the file internally, the file is now available to anyone on the internet, even without authentication.

In this blog post, we show you how to prevent your Amazon S3 buckets and objects from allowing public access. We discuss how to secure data in Amazon S3 with a defense-in-depth approach, where multiple security controls are put in place to help prevent data leakage. This approach helps prevent you from allowing public access to confidential information, such as personally identifiable information (PII) or protected health information (PHI).

Preventing your Amazon S3 buckets and objects from allowing public access

Every call to an Amazon S3 service becomes a REST API request. When your request is transformed via a REST call, the permissions are converted into parameters included in the HTTP header or as URL parameters. The Amazon S3 bucket policy allows or denies access to the Amazon S3 bucket or Amazon S3 objects based on policy statements, and then evaluates conditions based on those parameters. To learn more, see Using Bucket Policies and User Policies.

With this in mind, let’s say multiple AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) users at Example Corp. have access to an Amazon S3 bucket and the objects in the bucket. Example Corp. wants to share the objects among its IAM users, while at the same time preventing the objects from being made available publicly.

To demonstrate how to do this, we start by creating an Amazon S3 bucket named examplebucket. After creating this bucket, we must apply the following bucket policy. This policy denies any uploaded object (PutObject) with the attribute x-amz-acl having the values public-read, public-read-write, or authenticated-read. This means authenticated users cannot upload objects to the bucket if the objects have public permissions.

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "DenyPublicReadACL",
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "*"
            },
            "Action": [
                "s3:PutObject",
                "s3:PutObjectAcl"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket/*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "s3:x-amz-acl": [
                        "public-read",
                        "public-read-write",
                        "authenticated-read"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Sid": "DenyPublicReadGrant",
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "*"
            },
            "Action": [
                "s3:PutObject",
                "s3:PutObjectAcl"
            ],
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket/*",
            "Condition": {
                "StringLike": {
                    "s3:x-amz-grant-read": [
                        "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AllUsers*",
                        "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AuthenticatedUsers*"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Sid": "DenyPublicListACL",
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "*"
            },
            "Action": "s3:PutBucketAcl",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket",
            "Condition": {
                "StringEquals": {
                    "s3:x-amz-acl": [
                        "public-read",
                        "public-read-write",
                        "authenticated-read"
                    ]
                }
            }
        },
        {
            "Sid": "DenyPublicListGrant",
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Principal": {
                "AWS": "*"
            },
            "Action": "s3:PutBucketAcl",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket",
            "Condition": {
                "StringLike": {
                    "s3:x-amz-grant-read": [
                        "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AllUsers*",
                        "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AuthenticatedUsers*"
                    ]
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

To better understand what is happening in this bucket policy, we’ll explain each statement. Let’s start with the first statement.


{
    "Sid": "DenyPublicReadACL",
    "Effect": "Deny",
    "Principal": {
        "AWS": "*"
    },
    "Action": [
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:PutObjectAcl"
    ],
    "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket/*",
    "Condition": {
        "StringEquals": {
            "s3:x-amz-acl": [
                "public-read",
                "public-read-write",
                "authenticated-read"
            ]
        }
    }
}

This statement accomplishes the following:

“Deny any Amazon S3 request to PutObject or PutObjectAcl in the bucket examplebucket when the request includes one of the following access control lists (ACLs): public-read, public-read-write, or authenticated-read.”

Remember that IAM policies are evaluated not in a first-match-and-exit model. Instead, IAM evaluates first if there is an explicit Deny. If there is not, IAM continues to evaluate if you have an explicit Allow and then you have an implicit Deny.

The above policy creates an explicit Deny. Even when any authenticated user tries to upload (PutObject) an object with public read or write permissions, such as public-read or public-read-write or authenticated-read, the action will be denied. To understand how S3 Access Permissions work, you must understand what Access Control Lists (ACL) and Grants are. You can find the documentation here.

Now let’s continue our bucket policy explanation by examining the next statement.

{
    "Sid": "DenyPublicReadGrant",
    "Effect": "Deny",
    "Principal": {
        "AWS": "*"
    },
    "Action": [
        "s3:PutObject",
        "s3:PutObjectAcl"
    ],
    "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket/*",
    "Condition": {
        "StringLike": {
            "s3:x-amz-grant-read": [
                "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AllUsers*",
                "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AuthenticatedUsers*"
            ]
        }
    }
}

This statement is very similar to the first statement, except that instead of checking the ACLs, we are checking specific user groups’ grants that represent the following groups:

AuthenticatedUsers group. Represented by http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AuthenticatedUsers, this group represents all AWS accounts. Access permissions to this group allow any AWS account to access the resource. However, all requests must be signed (authenticated).
AllUsers group. Represented by http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AllUsers, access permissions to this group allow anyone on the internet access to the resource. The requests can be signed (authenticated) or unsigned (anonymous). Unsigned requests omit the Authentication header in the request.

For more information about which parameters you can use to create bucket policies, see Using Bucket Policies and User Policies.

Now that you know how to deny object uploads with permissions that would make the object public, you just have two statement policies that prevent users from changing the bucket permissions (Denying s3:PutBucketACL from ACL and Denying s3:PutBucketACL from Grants).

Below is how we’re preventing users from changing the bucket permisssions.

{
  "Sid": "DenyPublicListACL",
  "Effect": "Deny",
  "Principal": {
    "AWS": "*"
  },
  "Action": "s3:PutBucketAcl",
  "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket",
  "Condition": {
    "StringEquals": {
      "s3:x-amz-acl": [
        "public-read",
        "public-read-write",
        "authenticated-read"
      ]
    }
  }
},
{
  "Sid": "DenyPublicListGrant",
  "Effect": "Deny",
  "Principal": {
    "AWS": "*"
  },
  "Action": "s3:PutBucketAcl",
  "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::examplebucket",
  "Condition": {
    "StringLike": {
      "s3:x-amz-grant-read": [
        "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AllUsers*",
        "*http://acs.amazonaws.com/groups/global/AuthenticatedUsers*"
      ]
    }
  }
}

As you can see above, the statement is very similar to the Object statements, except that now we use s3:PutBucketAcl instead of s3:PutObjectAcl, the Resource is just the bucket ARN, and the objects have the “/*” in the end of the ARN.

In this section, we showed how to prevent IAM users from accidently uploading Amazon S3 objects with public permissions to buckets. In the next section, we show you how to enforce multiple layers of security controls, such as encryption of data at rest and in transit while serving traffic from Amazon S3.

Securing data on Amazon S3 with defense-in-depth

Let’s say that Example Corp. wants to serve files securely from Amazon S3 to its users with the following requirements:

The data must be encrypted at rest and during transit.
The data must be accessible only by a limited set of public IP addresses.
All requests for data should be handled only by Amazon CloudFront (which is a content delivery network) instead of being directly available from an Amazon S3 URL. If you’re using an Amazon S3 bucket as the origin for a CloudFront distribution, you can grant public permission to read the objects in your bucket. This allows anyone to access your objects either through CloudFront or the Amazon S3 URL. CloudFront doesn’t expose Amazon S3 URLs, but your users still might have access to those URLs if your application serves any objects directly from Amazon S3, or if anyone gives out direct links to specific objects in Amazon S3.
A domain name is required to consume the content. Custom SSL certificate support lets you deliver content over HTTPS by using your own domain name and your own SSL certificate. This gives visitors to your website the security benefits of CloudFront over an SSL connection that uses your own domain name, in addition to lower latency and higher reliability.

To represent defense-in-depth visually, the following diagram contains several Amazon S3 objects (A) in a single Amazon S3 bucket (B). You can encrypt these objects on the server side or the client side. You also can configure the bucket policy such that objects are accessible only through CloudFront, which you can accomplish through an origin access identity (C). You then can configure CloudFront to deliver content only over HTTPS in addition to using your own domain name (D).

Defense-in-depth requirement 1: Data must be encrypted at rest and during transit

Let’s start with the objects themselves. Amazon S3 objects—files in this case—can range from zero bytes to multiple terabytes in size (see service limits for the latest information). Each Amazon S3 bucket includes a collection of objects, and the objects can be uploaded via the Amazon S3 console, AWS CLI, or AWS API.

You can encrypt Amazon S3 objects at rest and during transit. At rest, objects in a bucket are encrypted with server-side encryption by using Amazon S3 managed keys or AWS Key Management Service (AWS KMS) managed keys or customer-provided keys through AWS KMS. You also can encrypt objects on the client side by using AWS KMS managed keys or a customer-supplied client-side master key.

If you choose to use server-side encryption, Amazon S3 encrypts your objects before saving them on disks in AWS data centers. To encrypt an object at the time of upload, you need to add the x-amz-server-side-encryption header to the request to tell Amazon S3 to encrypt the object using Amazon S3 managed keys (SSE-S3), AWS KMS managed keys (SSE-KMS), or customer-provided keys (SSE-C). There are two possible values for the x-amz-server-side-encryption header: AES256, which tells Amazon S3 to use Amazon S3 managed keys, and aws:kms, which tells Amazon S3 to use AWS KMS managed keys.

The following code example shows a Put request using SSE-S3.

PUT /example-object HTTP/1.1
Host: myBucket.s3.amazonaws.com
Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2016 17:50:00 GMT
Authorization: authorization string
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Length: 11434
x-amz-meta-author: Janet
Expect: 100-continue
x-amz-server-side-encryption: AES256
[11434 bytes of object data]

If you choose to use client-side encryption, you can encrypt data on the client side and upload the encrypted data to Amazon S3. In this case, you manage the encryption process, the encryption keys, and related tools. You encrypt data on the client side by using AWS KMS managed keys or a customer-supplied, client-side master key.

Defense-in-depth requirement 2: Data must be accessible only by a limited set of public IP addresses

At the Amazon S3 bucket level, you can configure permissions through a bucket policy. For example, you can limit access to the objects in a bucket by IP address range or specific IP addresses. Alternatively, you can make the objects accessible only through HTTPS.

The following bucket policy allows access to Amazon S3 objects only through HTTPS (the policy was generated with the AWS Policy Generator). Here the bucket policy explicitly denies ("Effect": "Deny") all read access ("Action": "s3:GetObject") from anybody who browses ("Principal": "*") to Amazon S3 objects within an Amazon S3 bucket if they are not accessed through HTTPS ("aws:SecureTransport": "false").

{
    "Version": "2012-10-17",
    "Id": "Policy1504640911349",
    "Statement": [
        {
            "Sid": "Stmt1504640908907",
            "Effect": "Deny",
            "Principal": "*",
            "Action": "s3:GetObject",
            "Resource": "arn:aws:s3:::/*",
            "Condition": {
                "Bool": {
                    "aws:SecureTransport": "false"
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

Defense-in-depth requirement 3: Data must not be publicly accessible directly from an Amazon S3 URL

Next, configure Amazon CloudFront to serve traffic from within the bucket. The use of CloudFront serves several purposes:

CloudFront is a content delivery network that acts as a cache to serve static files quickly to clients.
Depending on the number of requests, the cost of delivery is less than if objects were served directly via Amazon S3.
Objects served through CloudFront can be limited to specific countries.

Access to these Amazon S3 objects is available only through CloudFront. We do this by creating an origin access identity (OAI) for CloudFront and granting access to objects in the respective Amazon S3 bucket only to that OAI. As a result, access to Amazon S3 objects from the internet is possible only through CloudFront; all other means of accessing the objects—such as through an Amazon S3 URL—are denied. CloudFront acts not only as a content distribution network, but also as a host that denies access based on geographic restrictions. You apply these restrictions by updating your CloudFront web distribution and adding a whitelist that contains only a specific country’s name (let’s say Liechtenstein). Alternatively, you could add a blacklist that contains every country except that country. Learn more about how to use CloudFront geographic restriction to whitelist or blacklist a country to restrict or allow users in specific locations from accessing web content in the AWS Support Knowledge Center.

Defense-in-depth requirement 4: A domain name is required to consume the content

To serve content from CloudFront, you must use a domain name in the URLs for objects on your webpages or in your web application. The domain name can be either of the following:

The domain name that CloudFront automatically assigns when you create a distribution, such as d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net
Your own domain name, such as example.com

For example, you might use one of the following URLs to return the file image.jpg:

http://d111111abcdef8.cloudfront.net/images/image.jpg
http://example.com/images/image.jpg

You use the same URL format whether you store the content in Amazon S3 buckets or at a custom origin, like one of your own web servers.

Instead of using the default domain name that CloudFront assigns for you when you create a distribution, you can add an alternate domain name that’s easier to work with, like example.com. By setting up your own domain name with CloudFront, you can use a URL like this for objects in your distribution: http://example.com/images/image.jpg.

Let’s say that you already have a domain name hosted on Amazon Route 53. You would like to serve traffic from the domain name, request an SSL certificate, and add this to your CloudFront web distribution. The SSL offloading occurs in CloudFront by serving traffic securely from each CloudFront location. You also can configure CloudFront to deliver your content over HTTPS by using your custom domain name and your own SSL certificate. Serving web content through CloudFront reduces response from the origin as requests are redirected to the nearest edge location. This results in faster download times than if the visitor had requested the content from a data center that is located farther away.

Summary

In this post, we demonstrated how you can apply policies to Amazon S3 buckets so that only users with appropriate permissions are allowed to access the buckets. Anonymous users (with public-read/public-read-write permissions) and authenticated users without the appropriate permissions are prevented from accessing the buckets.

We also examined how to secure access to objects in Amazon S3 buckets. The objects in Amazon S3 buckets can be encrypted at rest and during transit. Doing so helps provide end-to-end security from the source (in this case, Amazon S3) to your users.

If you have feedback about this blog post, submit comments in the “Comments” section below. If you have questions about this blog post, start a new thread on the Amazon S3 forum or contact AWS Support.

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