AWS¶

How to Access AWS From Azure VM Using OpenID Connect

In the day to day operations of a software application, it is common to be in a position to manage and handle multiple cloud providers at the same time.

This can be due to the business requirements or because of technological constraints on the primary cloud provider of the company.

In this blog post we will see how to grant an Azure Virtual Machine access to AWS services, without storing any long-lived credentials and with the power of OpenID Connect.

If you've worked with either cloud, or want inspiration on how to apply this technique to your setup, then this blog post is for you.

GitOps Continuous Deployment: FluxCD Advanced CRDs

FluxCD is a powerful ecosystem of GitOps operators that can be enabled on-demand as per the requirement of your environment. It enables you to opt-in for the features you need and to disable the ones you don't.

As the complexity and requirement of your environment grows, so does the need for extra tooling to cover the implementation of the features you need.

FluxCD comes with more than just the support for Kustomization and HelmRelease. With FluxCD, you can also manage your Docker images as new versions get built. You can also get notified of the events that happen on your behalf by the FluxCD operators.

Stick till the end to see how you can take your Kubernetes cluster to the next level using advanced FluxCD CRDs.

cert-manager: All-in-One Kubernetes TLS Certificate Manager

Kubernetes is a great orchestration tool for managing your applications and all its dependencies. However, it comes with an extensible architecture and with an unopinionated approach to many of the day-to-day operational tasks.

One of these tasks is the management of TLS certificates. This includes issuing as well as renewing certificates from a trusted Certificate Authority. This CA may be a public internet-facing application or an internal service that needs encrypted communication between parties.

In this post, we will introduce the industry de-facto tool of choice for managing certificates in Kubernetes: cert-manager. We will walk you through the installation of the operator, configuring the issuer(s), and receiving a TLS certificate as a Kubernetes Secret for the Ingress or Gateway of your application.

Finally, we will create the Gateway CRD and expose an application securely over HTTPS to the internet.

If that gets you excited, hop on and let's get started!

External Secrets Operator: Fetching AWS SSM Parameters into Azure AKS

How to pass your secrets to the Kubernetes cluster without hard-coding them into your source code or manually creating the Kubernetes Secret resource.

Grant Kubernetes Pods Access to AWS Services Using OpenID Connect

Learn how to establish a trust relationship between a Kubernetes cluster and AWS IAM to grant cluster generated Service Account tokens access to AWS services using OIDC & without storing long-lived credentials.

What is OpenID Connect Authentication? A Practical Guide

OpenID Connect is the modern-day solution to an ever-lasting problem: to authenticate users when the identity provider and the service provider are different entities.

External Secrets and Immutable Target

If you have worked with External Secrets Operator before, then you know how it eases the operation of managing the secrets in the Kubernetes cluster. It supports many backends and is very powerful.

However, there is a nuance. The External Secrets Operator allows you to define an immutable target secret, sealing the secret shut from future changes unless explicitly deleted and recreated, which is perfect if you never want to modify the secret. But, change is the only constant in the world of IT, and you might want to change the secret in the future. This is where immutable can catch you off guard, as it did mine. This is my story and how I solved it.