Show Available AWS Aurora MySQL Database Engines

To get a list of current AWS Aurora MySQL (compatible) Database Engines you can use the following command from the AWS CLI: So you’ll get an output like: At the time of writing (05/02/25) the recommended/default version is: 8.0.mysql_aurora.3.05.2, but remember that the list of Database Engines that are provided will include ones that are […]

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Manually Interact with IMAP(s) Using Telnet or OpenSSL

Sometimes it can be handy to connect into an IMAP(s) server to verify it is working as expected, or to view emails via a command line interface. In this example I’m connecting to a Microsoft Exchange 2016 Server with IMAP enabled, specifically IMAPS, so running on port 993. Connect and Login Firstly we need to […]

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Multicast – PIM, RP, BSR and MSDP for Multicast Across Routed Networks

Multicast is a networking method used to efficiently transmit data to multiple recipients simultaneously. Unlike unicast (one-to-one) and broadcast (one-to-all) communication, multicast is a one-to-many or many-to-many method where data is sent only to devices that are interested in receiving it, rather than to all devices on a network. In multicast, devices that want to […]

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Terraform – AWS Assign Pre-existing Elastic IP Address to an EC2 Instance

Elastic IP Addresses (EIP) are great as they provide you with a static IP address which you can use for an endpoint to your application, but when you are automating things with Terraform, you don’t want it to be continually re-created or that IP address will change, and if you have DNS records pointing at […]

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Nissan LEAF mk2 2022 – LEAFSpy Pro and OBDII

The Nissan LEAF provides limited information via the normal information systems in the car as to what is going on with the drive train and more specifically the battery. However, there is an phone app that is available for Apple IOS and Android called “LEAFSpy Pro” that can provide you with detailed information; something that […]

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Exchange 2016 SMTP StartTLS “Didn’t find STARTTLS in server response”

We use SMTP on our Exchange Servers to provide authenticated SMTP email service for those who are using email clients which require SMTP to send email. We had an issue that following a certificate expiry that any SMTP connections to the server (that were attempting to use STARTTLS) would fail. For example: The issue was […]

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VMware Snapshots – Some Thoughts and Best Practice

VMware gives the capability to “snapshot” a powered on or powered off virtual machine, preserving its state at a particular point in time. Although this is a very useful feature, is it not intended as a long term backup, archive or for example a pre-upgrade/change state backup. A snapshot allows an administrator to create a […]

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