https://techfrontier.me.uk/ Recent content on techFrontier Hugo -- gohugo.io en Copyright © 2008–2021, daed@techfrontier; all rights reserved. Tue, 05 Dec 2023 08:38:18 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/git-cheat-sheet/ Tue, 05 Dec 2023 08:38:18 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/git-cheat-sheet/ Initialise a folder locally to be source control repo 1git init Add changed files to be staged ready for a commit ("." represents all files down from the current ) 1git add . Commit changes 1git commit -m "this is a commit message" Create a repo in github Diagrams to follow. attach a local repo to an empty repo in github Diagrams to follow these commands usually pop out of github - https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/vault-simplified/ Sat, 25 Nov 2023 12:07:07 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/vault-simplified/ These were the software dependencies that I used to make this guide up. Software Version RaspbianOS 10 (buster) Hashicorp Vault 1.10.3 Hashicorp Vault CLI 1.15.2 ...this isn't a step by step kind of post, more, useful commands that might make life easier getting to know Vault. Install Vault Client (Mac) 1brew tap hashicorp/tap 2brew install hashicorp/tap/vault Install Vault Client (Win 10 or above) 1Winget install Hashicorp.Vault Make sure you’ve got the right environment variables setup on your client machine, vault client uses these to connect and authenticate to the vault server. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/vault-on-a-pi/ Fri, 23 Dec 2022 11:20:16 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/vault-on-a-pi/ My Version of Hashicorp Vault on a Raspberry Pi. There was a time when many of us techies had Raspberry PIs hanging around not doing much in boxes. I've got mine monitoring temperatures across the house, doing ad blocking and helping me out doing some docker stuff. I own a spare Pi 2B which I'd left for dead, but then thought, can I use it for some useful bits of software. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/finally-my-own-awx-server/ Thu, 22 Dec 2022 15:25:03 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/finally-my-own-awx-server/ Finally, My Own AWX Server I've been wanting my own AWX server for ages I've messed with a bit of Ansible and found it to be agreeable with some of the previous ways Ive automated code in the past, but I wanted to scale it up (given my infrastucture roots). I attempted this install two or three times this year across different platforms and install types and had problems sometimes being caused with me experimenting with other technologies at the same time or just out of date documentation. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/downloading-on-a-dodgy-net-connection/ Tue, 19 Apr 2022 12:06:55 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/downloading-on-a-dodgy-net-connection/ Downloading Files on a Dodgy Network Connection. I was on holiday this weekend and the place we stayed didn't have a strong internet connection. It was good enough for browsing, but not good enough for multiple people streaming stuff off of the internet. So we wanted to pull down some files from our media library (typically large files) to where we were staying. I had a web server at home, and my computer with us on holiday. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/installing-openshift-virtualbox/ Fri, 28 Jan 2022 12:06:55 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/installing-openshift-virtualbox/ Installing OpenShift on a VirtualBox VM I keep hearing the word OpenShift at work. I don't know what it means. First instinct is to try and get something up and running. I spent about a week and a half scouring the internet for some good instructions and tried a few things. Here's my findings. (I'll probably do a follow up on getting containers running on it later. All we're doing here is spinning up a cluster) https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/nexus-adventures/ Sat, 27 Mar 2021 17:42:41 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/nexus-adventures/ Coding Scenario: Work wants to create a secure pipeline for developing services and code. Computers are locked down so that they can not get dependencies off of the internet and should get the from a a verified place. My framework of choice is .NET 5, which means repository needs to be able to support nuget packages. Here is my story. Versions tested Software Version Docker 20.10.5, build 55c4c88 Linux Mint 20 (Ulyana), Linux 5. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/using-helm/ Wed, 10 Mar 2021 11:43:43 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/using-helm/ Wanted to just write some quick notes down here of what I've seen attempting to use Helm So here we're using Kubernetes, it likes to use yaml files to do lots of desired state of running various bits of content (containers, pods that kind of thing). Helm is there to reduce the overhead of the complex yaml to define packages of services and applications that run and making values very parameterisable. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/getting-started-kube/ Tue, 09 Mar 2021 19:33:14 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/getting-started-kube/ Method 1 - Docker Desktop Easiest way is to use Docker Desktop 3.2.1 and enable kubernetes in the preferences, but if you want to see whats happening under the hood I prefer to use this old Virtualbox/Vagrant method. Method 2 - VirtualBox Vagrant Tested on Mac (x86_64) 11.2.2 Big Sur Virtualbox 6.1.18 Vagrant 2.2.14 Kubectl 1.16.3 First install Virtualbox, Kubectl and Vagrant from their respective websites. Clone this repo: https://github.com/justmeandopensource/kubernetes https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/scaling-macbook-res/ Tue, 02 Mar 2021 12:06:26 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/scaling-macbook-res/ So bit of background. I like Mac's retina (otherwise known as HiDPI under the hood) display. Even when on a non-native resolution, I feel its sharper than running on the low DPI setting. I've bought monitors in the past (a lovely Dell, 2560x1440) and had to cave to the fact that I could not run retina/HiDPI at anything more than 1650x1080, and have black bars left and right of the main screen. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/family-it-advice-2/ Fri, 19 Feb 2021 21:29:55 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/family-it-advice-2/ Privacy in the modern age is a rare thing. Always remember if you are using a free service, or getting something cheaper, you’re probably the product. This post goes into some of the stuff you can do to protect yourself. I often get questions around is there anything I can do to protect privacy. I can describe what I do….but its not an exhaustive list. I try not to give away too much, but I know I could go a lot further if I wanted to, but then the usefulness of the internet and its speed may not be as good as if unprotected. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/family-it-advice-1/ Thu, 18 Feb 2021 21:29:55 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/family-it-advice-1/ I get a lot of questions from my family about various computer related things, I thought I’d write down the answers for a few of the interesting ones…. Anti-Virus, is a bit of software that runs in the background on your machine, trying to analyse any changes to the system that are malicious. My usual advice on Anti-Virus on Windows is stick with Defender, the in built Microsoft tool, its good enough and doesn’t impact the speed of the computer too much. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/fixing-a-macbook-15-2011-gpu/ Thu, 30 May 2019 09:56:09 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/fixing-a-macbook-15-2011-gpu/ A family member came to me with a 15″ MacBook Pro from 2011 and High Sierra saying that it would only boot up so far, before coming to a grey screen and then just staying powered on but not doing anything. A quick internet search revealed that this particular family of MacBooks had issues with their AMD Graphics Cards. On a desktop this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but on a laptop…. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-4b/ Mon, 04 Mar 2019 18:27:34 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-4b/ Setting up the monolith pipleine (Azure DevOps Pipelines) In Episode 1, we created a Monolith application in .NET Core two do some simple Maths on two supplied numbers. Episode 2, we showed how to use Docker and Dockerfiles to docker-is the application ready to run either on a Developers Laptop or on a Docker Host or Docker Cloud Provider. Episode 3, we then created a private docker registry so we can store that image and make it accessible to other team members, or other users. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-4a/ Sun, 03 Mar 2019 18:26:20 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-4a/ Setting up the Monolith Pipeline (TDD) In Episode 1, we created a Monolith application in .NET Core two do some simple Maths on two supplied numbers. Episode 2, we showed how to use Docker and Dockerfiles to docker-is the application ready to run either on a Developers Laptop or on a Docker Host or Docker Cloud Provider. Episode 3, we then created a private docker registry so we can store that image and make it accessible to other team members, or other users. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-1/ Sat, 02 Mar 2019 20:50:59 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-1/ This is a new series I’ve decided to write, which covers the current experiment I’m running with .NET Core 2.1, Azure DevOps, Docker and eventually Kubernetes. I want to demonstrate how we break up a simplified example of a monolithic application containing self hosted WebAPI services into a number of microservices. Code is hosted here: https://github.com/r3adm3/monolithsvc and https://github.com/r3adm3/multiservice The continuous integration pipelines are here : https://techfrontier.visualstudio.com/dockerOrchestrationExperiment/_build?definitionId=22 Episode 1 then. Lets make a monolith. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-3/ Sat, 02 Mar 2019 19:31:14 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-3/ Setting up a private docker registry In parts 1 and 2 of this series, we’ve coded up a simple .NET Core 2 web application, containing some services, and we’ve dockerised it and its stored on our local docker image library. Cool. Now, what happens if we want to be able to share that unit of execution with other members of a team, so they can test changes…..we do that using docker repositories. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-2/ Sat, 02 Mar 2019 19:19:34 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/monolith-to-microservices-2/ Dockerising the Monolith Docker as a technology seems to divide the community, some say its a good solution to the problem of packaging up your software that collects all of your dependencies and then stamps them into a repeatable deployable package….others say its been done before with other technologies or that its a security problem waiting to happen since all of the dependencies you’ve placed in the container are locked at a particular version and not updatable. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/nano-server-2016/ Fri, 29 Jan 2016 20:32:01 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/nano-server-2016/ Microsoft has yet to release an iso that allows you to install Nano Server onto a server. The standard method seems to be to create a VHD and then use that to run Nano. I was at a conference the other day, and managed to work through the process of getting a server up and running in VirtualBox 5. Lets go: On a Windows 10 Client or Windows 2016 TP4 server with GUI, mount the normal Windows 2016 ISO and copy the nano server folder to c:\nanoserver. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/powershell-to-email-disk-usage/ Sun, 19 Jan 2014 20:37:51 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/powershell-to-email-disk-usage/ I use a couple of different technologies to store large quantites of data on my “server” at home, namely Storage Pools combined with Data Deduplication on Windows Server 2012 R2. Up to a couple of weeks ago it was working great but I’ve started to notice oddities which couldn’t really be explained… So I decided to script up a quick report and then schedule it to email me. This is how I did it. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/outlook-web-app-didnt-initialise/ Thu, 21 Feb 2013 20:56:17 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/outlook-web-app-didnt-initialise/ Outlook Web App didn’t initialize. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk. Couldn’t find a base theme (folder name=base) This error is caused, when the base theme for the OWA is missing in \ClientAccess\Owa\14.1.287.0\themes. You solve this issue by running the following command in a Exchange Managment Shell: 1"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin\UpdateCas.ps1" https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/fqdn-windows-server-in-domain/ Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:11:26 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/fqdn-windows-server-in-domain/ Quick one for you (and there’s probably easier ways of doing this)…only took ten minutes to work it out tho. I needed to get the Fully Qualified Domain Name of a computer on the network into an environment variable in a batch script. Here’s the code snippet: 1@ECHO OFF 2 3FOR /f "tokens=2,* delims= " %%a in ('IPCONFIG ^/ALL ^| FINDSTR "Primary Dns"') do set tempsuffix=%%b 4FOR /f "tokens=1,2 delims=:" %%a in ('echo %tempsuffix%') do set dnssuffix=%%b 5SET FQDN=%COMPUTERNAME%. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/unattended-wse-install/ Fri, 02 Mar 2012 18:56:51 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/unattended-wse-install/ I’ve been on a project where a number of prerequisites needed scripting and we’re provided in the MSI format. This is the Microsoft Installer format. There are a number of switches you can use which can streamline an application install. Problem was that the way our installing system operates here, the execution environment runs as the BUILTIN\Administrator, but doesn’t load his profile so its taken some time to find the right combination of switches. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/secure-hdcp-link-not-found/ Sun, 01 Mar 2009 11:40:55 +0000 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/secure-hdcp-link-not-found/ I’m a fan of the XBox 360, the price these days for a combined DVD, Media center Extender and games console is so low its hard not to be, however every once in a while an issue that comes up that isn’t necessarily easily explained out there in Cyberspace. This morning, my sons and I wanted to resume a DVD that we we’re watching yesterday and we got the dreaded “Secure HDCP Link not found” error message. https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/oracle-oui-silent-installs/ Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:26:57 +0100 https://techfrontier.me.uk/post/oracle-oui-silent-installs/ I’ve been working on this all week and I finally made a breakthrough for this today. The task at hand was to automate the install of the Oracle Data Access Components for OLE DB for 10g. At my work we prefer to script everything so if anyone gets knocked down by a bus, someone else should be able to just run the script (good best practice in my opinion). We also want scripted uninstalls, so that if it all goes wrong, we just run the backout script.