Now that I have my module on Github and built the module on Azure Pipelines, I want to publish it to the Powershell Gallery. The first step it of course to create a free account; once you have the account you can head to your profile, click on API Keys and then Create: The Create dialog allows to choose the key name, the expiration and very important, the scope (what permission the key will have on the Gallery) and which packages the key is allowed to control through Global Pattern. In my case I want the key to expire every year, I want the key to grant permission to publish new packages and update existing ones and I want this key to be used only for LSE modules: notice I used LSE* as Global Pattern, this way this same key will allow me to publish and manage new packages as long as their name begins with LSE. Azure Pipelines allows to securely store secrets (passwords and keys) as variables, if you want to do so you can use the Variables tab in your Pipeline then click the padlock icon: Anyway I prefer to store the key in Azure KeyVault since…
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Run Pester tests on Azure Pipelines
Now that I have some simple functions and some tests in my master branch on Github, I want to make sure the tests are executed (and pass!) every time I merge some new code. At this point I do not care too much about my dev branch because I know I’ll commit often and things will not always be stable, but I’ll make sure all my test will pass before I merge from dev to master (and later I way want to publish from master to the Powershell Gallery, but only if all tests pass of course!). The first thing I need is an account on Azure DevOps (you can start with a free account) and when ready, head to Pipelines then Builds: Since my code is in Github, that’s what I’ll choose: The first time we setup this integration, Azure Pipelines must be authorized to access Github: Since I don’t have a yaml file already, I’ll select Starter pipeline At this point in my tests things got a bit murky. The Azure Devops Marketplace has (as of this post) two free extensions to run Pester tasks so I decided to try them. I installed both extensions and added them…
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Test Azure custom modules with Pester
Before I go too far along with building my LSECosmos module I must add proper tests. Just as a quick refresher (or to get some context if you’re not familiar with the concept), here are some pointers about Test Driven Development and Unit Testing: Test Driven Development (Wikipedia) Unit Testing (Wikipedia) Software Testing Fundamentals While it is relatively straightforward to test simple scripts (we would likely manually run the script testing a 2-3 core scenarios to make sure nothing terrible happens), things can get complicated fairly quickly with longer scripts or modules, especially when they are using a variety of cmdlets to take actions (think about Azure resources for example, or any other system-wide on-prem operation), need to pass data and objects back and forth between calls and so on. If you have written enough lines of code (no matter the language/tool you use), I bet you can remember at least one occasion where you decided to make an apparently small and innocent change to a well working piece of software an all hell broke loose 😵. I recently came across this meme on Facebook, it sums it up nicely 😅 (thanks to CodeChef for sharing): At its core proper…
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CosmosDb module
CosmosDb is a non-relational, distributed database you can to build highly scalable, global applications in Azure. It is: – Always on – Offers throughput scalability – Low latency, guaranteed – No schema or indexes management – Globally distributed – Enterprise ready – Use popular no-Sql APIs https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cosmos-db/introduction It’s all great from a development perspective, but when it comes to management things are a bit different. CosmosDb can be managed to a certain extent through Azure CLI but as of this writing there is no Powershell module available: I admit I have only superficially explored the existing modules and while it is great to see the Powershell Community sharing modules and scripts, it would probably be nice to have an official module by Microsoft as many other Resource Provider offer. This is a good opportunity though to continue exploring the topic I have introduced in my previous post about calling Resource Provider actions and since these script will likely be reused (I can actually use them at work), why not build a reusable module? Module basics Writing a Windows Powershell Module is a good point to start to get an overview of this topic; I’ll write a script module and I’ll…
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Invoke Azure Resource Provider actions with Powershell
Recently I started to convert all my script and modules to run on Powershell Core and I soon realized I have a problem. When it comes to Azure resources, I work with a combination of both ARM and RDFE and all is good in Powershell Desktop on Windows: just load (or let Powershell load for me) both the Azure module and the combination of Az.<RPName> components I need. I have now changed to Powershell Core as my default on Windows (on macOS/Linux I don’t really have a choice 😉) but I encountered compatibility and runtime errors with the Azure and Azure.Storage modules, even if I import Windows Compatibility first. Typically Powershell Core complains about duplicate assemblies already loaded but I also got weird runtime errors trying to run basic cmdlets. Since I want to move to Powershell Core anyway I decided to not try to figure out how to solve the problem but rather move to ARM completely, writing my own cmdlets and functions not otherwise available. Luckily the Resource Providers I am interested in (Cloud Services for example) expose APIs and actions for Classic (RDFE) resources, so to get started I just need to find the right one 🤓.…