Install Kubectl on WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux)

 Kubectl is the command line which will help to do everything with AKS or any other kubernetes set up. To setup or update kubectl on WSL follow the steps below. 

Transform json Files in Azure Pipelines

 In .NET aplication we use the appsettings.json to keep values such as connection string etc for local development mostly. In the context of Azure app servies or containeried envronments etc, we configure mostly app config service (with key vault to manage secrets) to keep our connection information, and any other config values. Howver, sometimes legecy deployments which are still done targeting on premise servers etc might need us to update actual appsetting.josn files or web config files etc. Let's look at how to transform josn files in an Azure pipeline.

Code Unit Test Coverage with Azure Pipelines

 Unit tests are essntial to ensure the code we develop is working as intended. Running the unit tests Azure pipelines is really helpful to not to miss the unit test failures. However, to give afurther assuarance we need to check the coverage of code with unit tests in our projects. Let's look at steps required to obtain a code unit tests coverage report in Azure piplines in  cobertura format.

The expected outcome

The coverage here shows the first library, all code lines (100%) are covered with tests and the the other library has only 22.2% code coverage. 

Conditionally Passing Different Values to Template Parameters in Azure DevOps Pipelines

Parameters Azure pipeline template helps to achieve dynamic behaviours in pipeline templates. Passing different values for template parameters based on conditions, via a single usage of teplate will help to reduce duplication of usage of template in the pipeline. Let's look at how to conditionally pass different values to template paramters with a practical example.

The expected behavoir

Let's assume there are three stages in the pipeline.

• Unit test stage - to build and unit test
• Build and push Docker image stage
• Deploy app stage

If we are in develop branch (refs/heads/develop) we want to run unit tests, build dcoker image and depending on both stages want to run a deploy.

Reducing Log Analytics Cost by Preventing Container Logs Ingestion from Azure Kubernetes Services (AKS)

 Monitoring is an essential part of a deployment of software on a platform such as AKS. However, once monitoring enabled there could be significant cost involved for monitoring data. When we enable log analytics workspace to ingest monitoring data from AKS, by default AKS will ingest all container logs, except for kube-system and gatekeeper-system namespaces. If our application are having large amout of container logs generated, then the cost will be lot higher for log analytics workspace. In case we are using app insights/ or an alternative system to monitor the application logs, for the applications deployed to AKS, we have enuough information to diagnose issues etc. Therefore, to reduce unnecessary cost log analytics can be done, by preventing AKS ingestion of the container logs to log analytics workspace. Let's explore the steps.

Expected outcome

As shown in the below figure, the log analytics workspace ingestion over time chart, is indicating the container logs data is no longer getting ingested after the change is applied.

 

Passing Environment Variables to Reusable Workflows in GitHub Actions

 We have discueed, that we have to use an environment variable to handle input parameter default values, if we are using trigger for workflow on push in the post "Setting Workflow Environment Variable Based on Input Parameter in GitHub Actions - on workflow_dispatch and Use a Default Value on push". If we have to pass on the input paramter value from a workflow to a reusable workflow, it does not work as expected and it is a limitation of reusable workflows  as explained in here. Let's try to understand with an example how to pass an env variable to a reusable workflow.

Setting Workflow Environment Variable Based on Input Parameter in GitHub Actions - on workflow_dispatch and Use a Default Value on push

 GitHub actions workflows support input only on manual trigger workflow_dispatch. What if we need to use default value in other triggers such as on push and use input parameter in case of manual trigger workflow_dispatch? Let's explore our options with an example.

Avoid GitHub Action Workflow Code Duplication - Using Composite Actions to Create Reusable Templates

 Azure DevOps yaml files for piplines can be created as templates to avoid duplicating same set of tasks in multiple areas of the pipelines. For GitHub actions workflow, we have seen here in "Build and Unit Tests for .NET Apps with GitHub Actions" the same steps are repeated in both Windows and Linux, build and unit test run. The solution to avoid duplicating same steps in multiple jobs in a GitHub actions workflow is the usage of composite actions. Let's modify our workflow implemented in "Build and Unit Tests for .NET Apps with GitHub Actions" to use composite action to build and unit test, and reuse that in both Windows and Linux job.