Deploying Windows 10 to AWS using Packer and the AWS PowerShell module

Setup an AWS SES Bounce dashboard monitor with daily email reports-logo

The reason for this post is that I wanted to create a one click solution to deploy a Window 10 machine into AWS.  I wanted the AWS instance to be named in Windows, added to the domain, install applications, name the AWS instance tag an much more.  The tools I initially decided on to create this were VMware, awscli, PowerShell, Terraform and Packer.

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Add Microsoft Authenticator MFA to AWS Accounts

The aim of this post is to configure policies in AWS to allow accounts that have been provisioned for users with specific permissions to register for MFA themselves.  The authenticator we will be using is the Microsoft IOS app but it could also be Google or any other authenticator.

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Setup an AWS SES Bounce dashboard monitor with daily email reports

Setup an AWS SES Bounce dashboard monitor with daily email reports-logo

This post will take you through some steps to setup an AWS SES (Amazon Web Services Simple Email Service) dashboard and daily reporting tool.  If you are moving any production systems over to SES you will need a method of keeping track of email bounces.  If you do not stay on top of it Amazon will suspend your account.

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Cancel an AWS ‘transfer to VTS’ to your storage gateway

If you use an AWS Storage Gateway as your virtual tape library you may accidentally move one (or more) of your tapes to archive (export in Backup Exec).  Once you initiate this process there is no way to stop it in the AWS console!  You will just see the Transfer to VTS message and have to wait a very long time.  Fortunately you can stop it using the AWS CLI.  You will need your gateway arn and your tape arn (you can find these in Backup Exec) and stop the transfer one tape at a time.

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