Day: December 30, 2023

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Using the Host’s FirewallD as the Main Firewall to Secure Docker

Found a rare article How to Secure a Docker Host Using Firewalld that teaches how to address the issue when that docker bypasses the FirewallD rules.

According to the Article, the goal of the Configuration is to

  • The firewall rules should count for whole host system – so including Docker containers with port mappings
  • A Docker container should be accessible from the internet if and only if the host port used in Docker container port mapping is allowed in the firewall
  • The approach should not break container networking

Do read up and you will be glad that this article was written for Administrators like us. Another Reference you may want to consider reading is Why Docker and Firewall don’t get along with each other!

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Automating Security Patch Logs and MS-Team Notifications with Ansible on Rocky Linux 8

If you have read the blog entry Using Ansible to automate Security Patch on Rocky Linux 8, you may want to consider capturing the logs and send notification to MS-Team if you are using that as a Communication Channel. This is a follow-up to that blog.

Please look at Part 1: Using Ansible to automate Security Patch on Rocky Linux 8

Writing logs (Option 1: Ansible Command used if just checking)

Recall that in Option 1: Ansible Command used if just checking, Part 1a & Part 1b, you can consider writing to logs in /var/log/ansible_logs

- name: Create a directory if it does not exist
  file:
    path: /var/log/ansible_logs
    state: directory
    mode: '0755'
    owner: root
  when:
    - ansible_os_family == "RedHat"
    - ansible_distribution_major_version == "8"



- name: Copy Results to file
  ansible.builtin.copy:
    content: "{{ register_output_security.results | map(attribute='name') | list }}"
    dest: /var/log/ansible_logs/patch-list_{{ansible_date_time.date}}.log
  changed_when: false
  when:
    - ansible_os_family == "RedHat"
    - ansible_distribution_major_version == "8"

Notification (Option 1: Ansible Command used if just checking)

You can write to MS Team to provide a short notification to let the Engineers knows that the logs has been written to /var/log/ansible_logs

- name: Send a notification to MS-Teams that Test Run (No Patching) is completed
  run_once: true
  uri:
    url: "https://xxxxxxx.webhook.office.com/webhookb2/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
    method: POST
    body_format: json
    body:
      title: "Test Patch Run on {{ansible_date_time.date}}"
      text: "Test Run only. System has not been Patched Yet. Logs saved at: /var/log/ansible_logs/patch-list_{{ansible_date_time.date}}.log"
  when:
    - register_update_success is defined
    - ext_permit_flag == "no"

Writing to MS-Team to capture the success Or failure of the Update (Option 2: Ansible Command used when ready for Patching)

- name: Send a notification to MS-Teams Channel if Upgrade failed
  run_once: true
  uri:
    url: "https://xxxxx.webhook.office.com/webhookb2/xxxxxx"
    method: POST
    body_format: json
    body:
      title: "Patch Run on {{ansible_date_time.date}}"
      text: "Patch Update has Failed"
  when:
    - register_update_success is not defined
    - ext_permit_flag == "yes"



- name: Send a notification to MS-Teams Channel if Upgrade failed
  run_once: true
  uri:
    url: "https://entuedu.webhook.office.com/webhookb2/xxxxxx"
    method: POST
    body_format: json
    body:
      title: "Patch Run on {{ansible_date_time.date}}"
      text: "Patch Update is Successful. Logs saved at: /var/log/ansible_logs/patch-list_{{ansible_date_time.date}}.log"
  when:
    - register_update_success is defined
    - ext_permit_flag == "yes"