Logstash Timestamp

Introduction

A few days back I encountered with a simple but painful issue. I am using ELK to parse my application logs and generate some meaningful views. Here I met with an issue which is, logstash inserts my logs into elasticsearch as per the current timestamp, instead of the actual time of log generation.

This creates a mess to generate graphs with correct time value on Kibana.

So I had a dig around this and found a way to overcome this concern. I made some changes in my logstash configuration to replace default time-stamp of logstash with the actual timestamp of my logs.

Logstash Filter

Add following piece of code in your filter plugin section of logstash’s configuration file, and it will make logstash to insert logs into elasticsearch with the actual timestamp of your logs, besides the timestamp of logstash (current timestamp).

date {
  locale => "en"
  timezone => "GMT"
  match => [ "timestamp", "yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ss +0000" ]
}

In my case, the timezone was GMT for my logs. You need to change these entries “yyyy-mm-dd HH:mm:ss +0000” with the corresponding to the regex for actual timestamp of your logs.

Description

Date plugin will override the logstash’s timestamp with the timestamp of your logs. Now you can easily adjust timezone in kibana and it will show your logs on correct time.

(Note: Kibana adjust UTC time with you bowser’s timezone)

Classless Inter Domain Routing Made Easy (Cont..)

Introduction :

As we had a discussion about Ip addresses and their classes in the previous blog,we can now start with Sub-netting.

Network Mask /Subnet Mask –

As mask means to cover something,

IP Address is made up of two components, One is the network address and the other is the host address.The Ip Address needs to be separated into the network and host address, and this separation of network and host address in done by Subnet Mask.The host part of an IP Address is further divided into subnet and host address if more subnetworks are needed and this can be done by subnetting. It is called as a subnet mask or Network mask as it is used to identify network address of an IP address by performing a bitwise AND operation on the netmask.

Subnet Mask is of 32 Bit and is used to divide the network address and host addresses of an IP.

In a Subnet Mask all the network bits are set to 1’s and all the host bits are set to 0’s.

Whenever we see an IP Address – We can easily Identify that

WHAT IS NETWORK PART OF THAT IP

WHAT IS THE HOST PART OF THAT IP

FORMAT :

mmmmmmmm.mmmmmmmm.mmmmmmmm.mmmmmmmm

(Either it will have 1 or 0 Continuously)

EXAMPLE :

A Class Network Mask

In Binary : 11111111.00000000.00000000.00000000 – First 8 Bits will be Fixed
In Decimal : 255.0.0.0

Let the IP Given is – 10.10.10.10

When we try to Identify it we know that it belong to class A, So the subnet mask will be : 255.0.0.0

And the Network Address will be : 10.0.0.0

B Class Network Mask

In Binary : 11111111.11111111.00000000.00000000 – First 16 Bits will be Fixed

In Decimal : 255.255.0.0

Let the IP Given is -150.150.150.150

When we try to Identify it we know that it belong to class B, So the subnet mask will be : 255.255.0.0

And the Network Address will be : 150.150.0.0

C Class Network Mask

In Binary : 11111111.111111111.11111111.00000000 – First 32 Bits will be Fixed

In Decimal : 255.255.255.0

Let the IP Given is – 200.10.10.10

When we try to Identify it we know that it belong to class C, So the subnet mask will be : 255.255.255.0

And the Network Address will be : 200.10.10.0

Subnetting :

The method of dividing a network into two or more networks is called subnetting.

A subnetwork, or subnet, is a logically subdivision of an IP network

Subnetting provides Better Security

Smaller collision and Broadcast Domains

Greater administrative control of each network.

Subnetting – WHY ??

Answer : Shortage of IP Addresses

SOLUTIONS : –

1) SUBNETTING – To divide Bigger network into the smaller networks and to reduce the wastage

2) NAT – Network Address Translation

3) Classless IP Addressing –

No Bits are reserved for Network and Host

**Now the Problem that came is how to Identify the Class of IP Address :**

Let a IP Be : 10.10.10.10

If we talk about classful we can say it is of class A But in classless : We can check it through subnetwork mask.

255.255.255.0

So by this we can say that first 24 bits are masked for network and the left 8 are for host.

Bits Borrowed from Host and added to Network

Network ID(N)

Host ID(H)

Network ID(N)

Subnet

Host ID(H)

Network ID(N)

Subnet

Subnet/Host

Let we have a

150.150.0.0 – Class Identifier/Network Address

150.150.2.4 – Host Address – IP GIVEN TO A HOST

255.255.255.0 – Subnet Mask

150.150.2.0 – Subnet Address

CIDR : Classless Inter Domain Routing

CIDR (Classless Inter-Domain Routing, sometimes called supernetting) is a way to allow more flexible allocation of Internet Protocol addresses than was possible with the original system of IP Address classes. As a result, the number of available Internet addresses was greatly increased, which along with widespread use of network address translation, has significantly extended the useful life of IPv4.

Let a IP be – 200.200.200.200

Network ID(N)

Host ID(H)

——–24 Bit ——– ——-8 bit ———–

Network Mask tells that the number of 1’s are Masked

Here First 24 Bits are Masked

In Decimal : 255.255.255.0

In Binary : 11111111.11111111.11111111.00000000

Here the total Number of 1’s : 24

So we can say that 24 Bits are masked.

This method of Writing the network mask can be represented in one more way

And that representation is called as CIDR METHOD/CIDR NOTATION

CIDR – 200.200.200.200/24

24 : Is the Number of Ones – Or we can say Bits Masked

Basically the method ISP’s(Internet Service Provider)use to allocate an amount of addresses to a company, a home

EX :

190.10.20.30/28 : Here 28 Bits are Masked that represents the Network and the remaining 4 bits represent the Host

/ – Represents how many bits are turned on (1s)

CLASS C SUBNETTING :

Determining Available Host Address :

200

11001000 00001010 00010100 00000000 – 1

00000001 – 2

00000011 – 3

11111101 – 254

11111110 – 255

11111111 – 256

-2

———

254

2^N – 2 = 2^8 -2 = 254

(Coz we have 8 bits in this case) – 2 (Because 2 Address are Reserved)

254 Address are available here

FORMULAS :

Number of Subnets : ( 2^x ) – 2 (x : Number of Bits Borrowed)

Number of Hosts : ( 2^y ) – 2 (y : Number of Zero’s)

Magic Number or Block Size = Total Number of Address : 256 – Mask

Let a IP ADDRESS BE 200.10.20.20/24

Number of subnets : 5

Network Address :

200

255

(as total Number of 1’s : 24)

IP in Binary

11001000

00001010

00010100

MASK

11111111

00000000

And Operation in IP And Mask

11001000

00001010

00010100

00000000

In Binary

200

As we need 5 Subnets :

2^n -2 => 5

So the value of n = 3 that satisfies the condition

So, We need to turn 3 Zero’s to One’s to create 5 subnets

200

11001000

00001010

00010100

00000000

11001000

00001010

00010100

11100000

(3 Zero’s changed to 3 one’s)

200

224

Subnet 0

200

0/27

Subnet 1 +32 – Block Size

200

32/27

Subnet 2 +32

200

64/27

Subnet 3

200

96/27

Subnet 4

200

128/27

Subnet 5

200

160/27

Subnet 6

200

192/27

Subnet 7

200

224/27

How to Put Host ADD.

Subnet 0

200

0/27

Subnet Broadcast Number 0

200

31 /27

Subnet 1 +32 – Block Size

200

31/27

200

32/27

200

33/27

200

62/27

Subnet Broadcast Subnet 1

200

63/27

200.10.20.33 ….and so on till 200.10.20.62 – 13 Host can be assigned IP Address.

Conclusion :

As the world is growing rapidly towards digitalization, use of IP Addresses is also increasing, So to decrease the wastage of IP Addresses, the implementation of CIDR is important that allows more organizations and users to take advantage of IPV4.

Classless Inter Domain Routing Made Easy

Introduction :

One day I was working with VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) inside AWS(Amazon Web Services), where I had a need to calculate the CIDR notation of an IP address and subnet combinations.

I had to use online tools to calculate the Subnets and CIDR every time when I was working with VPC, but I found it interesting that how the network get broken into different small Networks. So, finally I decided why not to learn CIDR Methods, and then calculate it by my own side instead of using tools every time.

But the questions that striked in my mind were:

What is CIDR ?
How CIDR Came into Picture ?
What CIDR do ?

For Understanding CIDR – (Classless Inter-Domain Routing) few thing need to be cleared before :

1. IP Addresses

2. Structure of IP Address

3. Internet Protocol Address Types

4. Classes

5. Network Mask

6. Subnetting

IP Address –

It is the Address of the Computer, Laptop, Printers or even of the Mobile Sets.
Everyone has some Address, so as these devices also have an Internet Protocol Address (IP Address), also called as Logical Address.

In a Network there are many Computers …

Network..??

A Network is a group of two or more Computers Linked Together.

So When there are Many Computers in a Network, We need to uniquely identify each Computer, so there IP ADDRESS works as an Unique Identifier for Computers and Other Devices.

For Example : There are Twin Sisters, How we are going to Identify them differently
By their Name that are unique for each of them.

Here Name of the Girls are the IP Addresses that will be unique and the two Girls are the two Devices.

Structure of IP Address –

Now the Question is How do an IP Address looks like??

IP ADDRESS : 192.168.33.10

IP ADDRESS is made up of 32-Bit – 8.8.8.8 = (8+8+8+8=32 Bits)

A bit (short for binary digit) is the smallest unit of data in a computer.

Binary Conversion for 192 :

192 : 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0

Bit 1 Bit 2 Bit 3 Bit 4 Bit 5 Bit 6 Bit 7 Bit 8 – Total Bit = 8

128+64 = 192
So, 0’s for Other and 1 for the Number whose sum will be 192

Binary Conversion for 168 :

168 : 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0

Bit 1 Bit 2 Bit 3 Bit 4 Bit 5 Bit 6 Bit 7 Bit 8 – Total Bit = 8

Binary Conversion for 33 :

33 : 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1

Bit 1 Bit 2 Bit 3 Bit 4 Bit 5 Bit 6 Bit 7 Bit 8 – Total Bit = 8

Binary Conversion for 10 :

10 : 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0

Bit 1 Bit 2 Bit 3 Bit 4 Bit 5 Bit 6 Bit 7 Bit 8 – Total Bit = 8

8.8.8.8 – total of 32 Bit.

Dotted Decimal Notation : In dot form 4 Sections are called as OCTETS – Vendor Neutral Term for Bytes.

Let a IP Be : 200.10.20.30

Inside a Network : 200.10.20 – will remain same and 30 will be unique for each.

Type of IP Address –

Assignment Method
Classes : 1) Classful
2) Classless
Public / Private
Version

Assignment Methods :

Assignment Method is method that defines how to assign an IP address to a Device.

IP Address can be assigned in two ways

1) Static IP Address

Static IP Address is the IP Address in which configuration is done Manually and is used in small networks.

2) Dynamic IP Address

Dynamic IP Address is the IP Address in which the configuration is done by the Computer Interface or by the Host Interface – DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)

— Configuration is Automatic–

Classes :

classes define that in an IP, How much part will be for Network and How much is for Host.

There are 2 types of classes in IP Addressing :

Classful
Classless

CLASSFUL : IP Address are divided into 5 Classes;

Class A : 0 – 126 N.H.H.H Assigned for Large Organization

127 N.H.H.H Assigned for the Loopback

Class B : 128 – 191 N.N.H.H Assigned for Medium Companies

Class C : 192 – 223 N.N.N.H Assigned for Small Organizations

Class D : 224 – 239 Assigned for Multicasting

Class E : 240 – 255 Assigned for Experimental Purpose

CLASSLESS : Classless addressing is an IP address where a subnet mask does not define its class. Subnet mask can be anywhere between bit 0 and bit 31.

CLASS A IP ADDRESS :

Range of Class A IP Address : 0.0.0.0 – 127.255.255.255

Network ID : 8 Bit

Host ID : 24 Bit (8+8+8)

IP Address begins with 0,First Bit will always be Zero
7 Remaining Bits in Network part : Only 128 Possible class A Network
24 Bits in Local Part : Over 16 million hosts per Class A Network
All class A network parts are assigned or reserved.

Network ID(N)

Host ID(H)

0 7 8 31

0NNNNNNN . HHHHHHHH . HHHHHHHH . HHHHHHHH

In Binary :

Class A starts from : 00000000.00000000.00000000.00000000

Class A ends at : 01111111.11111111.11111111.11111111

In Decimal :

Class A IP Address is from 0.0.0.0 to 127.255.255.255

Number of Networks : 2^7 = 128

Number of Hosts : 2^24

SOME EXCEPTIONS IN CLASS A : Cannot be assigned to host

0.0.0.0 : For Self check – Represent Default Network or M

0.255.255.255 : For Self check – Represent Default Network or My IP

127.0.0.0 : Loop Back Address Range : solve NIC Problem

127.255.255.255 : Loop Back Address Range : solve NIC Problem

CLASS B IP ADDRESS :

Range of Class B IP Address : 128.0.0.0 – 191.255.255.255

Network ID : 16 Bit(8+8)

Host ID : 16 Bit (8+8)

First two Bit will always be One and Zero
14 Bits in Network part – Over 16,000 possible Class B Network
16 Bits in Local Part – Over 65,000 possible Hosts

Network ID(N)

Host ID(H)

0 15 | 16 31

10NNNNNN . NNNNNNNN . HHHHHHHH . HHHHHHHH

In Binary :

Class B starts fr0m : 10000000.00000000.00000000.00000000

Class B ends at : 10111111.11111111.11111111.11111111

In Decimal :

Class B IP Address is from 128.0.0.0 to 191.255.255.255

Number of Networks : 2^14

Number of Hosts : 2^16

SOME EXCEPTIONS IN CLASS B : Cannot be assigned to host

169.254.X.X : Reserved for APIPA (Automatic Private IP Address) – Host take IP Automatically ifit doesn’t get any DHCP Server in the Network.

CLASS C IP ADDRESS :

Range of Class B IP Address : 192.0.0.0 – 223.255.255.255

Network ID : 24 Bit(8+8+8)

Host ID : 8 Bit (8)

**Most Popular and Commonly Used**

First three Bit will always be One,One and Zero
21 Bits in Network part – Over 2 Million possible Class C Network
8 Bits in Local Part – Only 256 possible Hosts per class C Network

Network ID(N)

Host ID(H)

0 23 | 24 31

110NNNNN . NNNNNNNN . NNNNNNNN . HHHHHHHH

In Binary :

Class C starts from : 1100000.00000000.00000000.00000000

Class C ends at : 11011111.11111111.11111111.11111111

In Decimal :

Class C IP Address is from 192.0.0.0 to 223.255.255.255

Number of Networks : 2^21

Number of Hosts : 2^8

CLASS D IP ADDRESS :

Range : 224.0.0.0 – 239.255.255.255
IP Address begins with 1110

Used for Multicasting, Not defining networks.

Sending messages to group of hosts
just to one (Unicasting)
ALL HOSTS (Broadcasting)
Say to send a videoconference stream to a group of receivers

In Binary :

Class D starts from : 11100000.00000000.00000000.00000000

Class D end at : 11101111.11111111.11111111.11111111

In Decimal :

Class D IP Address is from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255

224.0.0.5 – OSPF
All OSPF Routers address is used to send HELLO PACKETS

224.0.0.6 – OSPF
All the routers address is used to send OSPF routing information to designated routers on a network segment.

224.0.0.9 – The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) version 2 group address is used to send routing information to all RIP2-aware routers on a network segment.

224.0.0.10 – EIGRP
used to send routing information to all EIGRP routers on a network segment.

224.0.0.18 – Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol.

Private/Public:

PUBLIC :

A public also called as External IP address is the one that your ISP (Internet Service Provider) provides to identify your home network to the outside world. It is an IP address that is unique throughout the entire Internet.

When you’re setting up your router, if your ISP issued you a static IP address, you enter it into your router’s settings. For a dynamic IP address, you specify DHCP in your router’s network settings. DHCP is Dynamic Host Control Protocol. It tells your router to accept whatever public IP address your ISP issues.

Those who wanted not to connect through internet but they wanted to run their network on TCP/IP Protocol

Here came the concept of PRIVATE IP

PRIVATE :

Just as your network’s public IP address is issued by your ISP, your router issues private (or internal) IP addresses to each network device inside your network. This provides unique identification for devices that are within your home network, such as your computer, your Slingbox, and so on.

THEY ARE NOT ROUTABLE

CLASS A PRIVATE ADDRESS 10.0.0.0 – 10.255.255.255

CLASS B PRIVATE ADDRESS 172.16.0.0 – 172.31.255.255

CLASS C PRIVATE ADDRESS 192.168.0.0 – 192.168.255.255

Internet Protocol Address :

Reserved IP Address :

Addresses beginning with 127 are reserved for loopback and internal testing – Used for Self Testing that TCP/IP is properly working or not.
XXX.0.0.0 reserved for Network Address
XXX.255.255.255 reserved for Broadcast
0.0.0.0 – First Address – Represent Local Network / Used for Default Routing
255.255.255.255 – Broadcast

Example : Let a Class A IP Address be – 101.101.101.101

Network Address – 101.0.0.0

BroadCast Address – 101.255.255.255

: Let a Class B IP Address be – 150.150.150.150

Network Address – 150.150.0.0

BroadCast Address – 150.150.255.255

I hope that gives you a good knowledge of IP Addresses and their classes.

Now, We can move on to what sub-netting is, in my next blog.

Please Follow this link to get on to sub-netting –
Classless Inter Domain Routing Made Easy (Cont..)

Gitolite

Requirement

We need private git repositories for internally use in our project so we use Gitolite for this requirement. Our client has a lot of consultants, partners and short term employees working with their code so they needed a good way of controlling access to the repos and preferably without giving each of them a unix user on the server where the repo is hosted.

What is Gitolite?

Gitolite is basically an access layer on top of Git. Users are granted access to repos via a simple config file and we as an admin only needs the users public SSH key and a username from the user. Gitolite uses this to grant or deny access to our Git repositories. And it does this via a git repository named gitolite-admin.

Installation

We need a public key and a Gitolite user through which we will setup the Gitolite.

In this case I have used my base machine(Ubuntu) public key so that only my machine can manage Gitolite.

Now we will copy this public key to a virtual machine

$ scp ~/.ssh/gitolite.pub git@192.168.0.20:/home/git

where vagrant is the user of my virtual machine & its IP is 192.168.0.20

Now we will install & create a gitolite user on remote machine which will be hosting gitolite.

root@git:~# apt-get install gitolite3

root@git:~# adduser gitolite

Now we need to remove password of gitolite user from below command

root@git:~# passwd -d gitolite

Let’s move & change the ownership of this public key.

root@git:~# mv gitolite.pub /home/gitolite/

root@git:~# chown gitolite:gitolite /home/gitolite/gitolite.pub

Become the gitolite user

root@git:~# su – gitolite

Now setup the gitolite with the public key

gitolite@git:~# gitolite setup -pk gitolite.pub

Now to manage the repositories, users and access-rights we will download the gitolite-admin(git repository) to our base machine.

$ git clone gitolite@192.168.0.20:gitolite-admin

$ cd gitolite-admin

$ ls -l

total
8

drwxr-xr-x
2 nitin nitin 4096 Jan 10 17:52 conf/
drwxr-xr-x
2 nitin nitin 4096 Jan 9 13:43 keydir/

where “keydir” is the directory where we store our user’s keys and that key name must be same as existing username on the system.

In conf directory there is a “gitolite.conf” file which controls which repositories are available on the system and who has which rights to those repositories.

We just need to add new repository name & users who will access it and this file will create the repo & grant the permission on it accordingly.

Let us explore my gitolite.conf file in which I have added a new repository called “opstreeblog”

$ cat conf/gitolite.conf

# Group name & members

@admin = nitin

@staff = jatin james

# Gitolite admin repository

repo gitolite-admin

RW+ = gitolite @admin

# Read-Write permission to all the users on testing repo

repo testing

RW+ = @all

# Read-Write permission to user sandy & the admin group. And Read-Only access to staff group

repo opstreeblog

RW+ = sandy @admin

R = @staff

where ‘@’ denotes the user group i.e @staff is a group & jatin, james are the users of this group and these names must be similar to the key name stored in keydir directory.
For example “jatin” user must have the public key named “jatin.pub”

Let’s have a quick test of our setup

$ git commit conf/gitolite.conf -m “added opstreeblog repo”

[master 357bbc8] added “opstreeblog” repo

1 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)

nitin@Latitude-3460:~/gitolite-admin$ git push origin master

Counting objects: 7, done.

Delta compression using up to 4 threads.

Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.

Writing objects: 100% (4/4), 428 bytes, done.

Total
4 (delta 0), reused 0 (delta 0)

remote: Initialized empty Git repository in /home/gitolite/repositories/opstreeblog.git/

To gitbox:gitolite-admin d595439..357bbc8
master -> master

I hope that gives you a good overview of how to install and manage Gitolite.

Kitchen Chef’s diagnosis center

Introduction

This time we familiarize you with the backings of chef kitchen. Chef kitchen provides you facility of trial and verification of your cookbooks over different environment so that you can confidently use them on your targeted infrastructure. This may be getting boring some times but here is always some seeds in oranges.

Prerequisites

This blog requires an initial information about Git and Vagrant. This blog uses centos7 as platform. It needs basic understanding of chef, it’s cookbooks and chef kitchen. To know about chef cookbooks and work with chef kitchen follow our previous blogs of this series Chef Start here with ease...

Setup Kitchen

To setup kitchen chase same procedure as we cater in our previous blog Chef-Kitchen Do it simply .

Backings of Kitchen

Chef kitchen is the diagnosis center of chef. Here you can test the authenticity of your cookbooks on different platforms and confidently use them on your infra. Kitchen achive this by using its configuration file where you define all the things which are necessary to run the complete cycle of kitchen.

.kitchen.yml

This file contains all the required stuff to run chef kitchen. This file is divided into four major sections.

Driver: This is the name of a driver that will be used to create platform instances used during cookbook testing. This is the default driver used for all platforms and suites unless a platform or suite specifies a driver to override the default driver for that platform or suite; a driver specified for a suite will override a driver set for a platform.

Provisioner: This specifies how the chef-client will be simulated during testing. chef_zero andchef_solo are the most common provisioners used for testing cookbooks

Platforms: This is a the name of a platform on which Kitchen will perform cookbook testing, for example,ubuntu-12.04 or centos-6.4; depending on the platform.
Suites: This is a collection of test suites, with each suite_name grouping defining an aspect of a cookbook to be tested.

.kitchen directory

This directory holds logs for every kitchen run for each platform entry in .kitchen.yml file. This folder also holds keypair for the ssh into your virtual environment.

Analysis of Kitchen

Kitchen performs its own complete cycle of testing via different phases. Kitchen has its five phases i.e., create, converge, login, verify and destroy. Each phase has its own significance and some specific task is gonna performed in every phase.

Create

In this step chef’s kitchen tool creates a virtual instance. This virtual instance could use cloud or any other virtualization technology. Chef supports cookbook testing across many cloud providers and virtualization technologies.

Converge

This phase is responsible for application of your cookbook on virtual instance. Here your all cookbooks deployed into the virtual instance, though in next steps you can verify the complete functioning of your cookbooks.

Login

This step creates a ssh session into your machine and provide you a login into it. So that you can run your test to verify the proper functioning of your cookbook.