Getting Started with Secure DevOps Kit for Azure

Security is important aspect of any software development project. DevOps is essential part of software development. Improving security measures of software development, delivery and deployment is now can be enhanced with Secure DevOps kit for Azure. This security kit comes with PowerShell unitalities as well as CI CD extensions etc. for securing your software projects. Let’s explore the Secure DevOps Kit with couple of posts. In this first post let’s look at an overview as well as how to get started with Azure Subscription health scans using PowerShell utilities.

Resolving “ERROR: There was a conflict. The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.” While Creating Function App in Azure in IaC

You can use Infrastructure as code (IaC) to create resources in Azure and use that in the Azure DevOps pipelines. However, if you are using IaC create an Azure function where the storage account of the function is added to Virtual Network (vnet in Azure) you may run into the issue ERROR: There was a conflict. The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden. To fix this issue you can set the storage account to allow any network while deploying function app and then reapply the restriction on storage access. Let’s see the cause of the error and how to resolve as the error message is really misleading.

Rollup Columns in Azure DevOps Boards

Azure Boards in Azure DevOps facilitate project planning and management with agility. The rich feature set and extensibility of Azure Boards with project level customizations as well as process template level customizations helps a lot to manage the projects effectively. The new feature rollup columns help you to visualize progress of the project work based on various criteria using the default fields as well as custom fields. Let’s have a quick look at options available with the new feature roll up columns in Azure Boards.
To add rollup columns in Azure Boards, navigate to Backlog section and select a backlog level such as User Stories backlog. Then click on Column Options.

Import BitBucket Cloud Repo to Azure Git Repo

Azure DevOps being a comprehensive Application Lifecycle Management tool provides Azure Git Repos as the distributed version control system which can be easily integrated with, Azure Boards to track requirements, and Azure Pipelines and Azure Tests, implement build and deployment automations as well as test management and test automation. If you are already a BitBucket cloud git repo user you may want to move your repos in BitBucket could to the Azure Git Repos to get the advantages it offers, with totally integrated set of Azure DevOps features. Let’s look at the steps required to import a BitBucket cloud repo with history to Azure Git Repos.

Resolving Azure DevOps Build Error “data at the root level is invalid” in dotnet test

When you try to execute dotnet test with test assemblies in Azure DevOps builds built with Visual Studio 2019 you may run into an error “data at the root level is invalid”. Let’s look at how to solve this issue and get the tests executed in the Azure DevOps build pipelines.

Using VS Code Extension for Azure Pipeline–Part1

Visual Studio Code is becoming a popular code editing tool in all platforms, Recently VS Code was added with Azure Pipeline extension which can generate YAML based pipeline code. The extension assists in writing YAML pipeline code providing IntelliSense. Let’s look at how we can get started with the Azure Pipeline extension to generate a YAML base pipeline.

Setting Up Az Module to Write IaC for Azure

Microsoft has deprecated the AzureRM PowerShell module and introduced new Az PowerShell module for Azure. Bug fixes and support will be available for AzureRM module until December 2020. However, it is better starting migrating any AzureRM based PowerShell scripts which you have written to achieve Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for Azure. For this purpose, you can setup the Azure Az Module in your machine while allowing the AzureRM commands to still work using alias. Let’s look at the steps of setting up Azure Az Module in a machine where Azure RM is already setup.

Creating an Azure Web App Supporting .NET Core 3 – IaC with Azure Pipelines

We have discussed how to build a .NET Core 3 Web Application in the previous post. In order to deploy a .NET Core 3.0 Web App to an Azure Web App, you need to install .NET Core 3.0 Extension to the Azure Web App. You can easily add .NET Core 3.0 via Azure Portal to a Web APP. However, if you are really into automating your infrastructure as code (IaC) you may want to make all these steps automated and executed via a deployment pipeline. Let’s look at a script which is using Azure CLI and Azure PowerShell to fully automate creation of a .NET Core 3.0 enabled Azure Web App.
You can download the full script from here. Let’s understand each part of the script.