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Docker Desktop as background task on Windows server

Docker desktop is not easy to run as a background task on a windows server. A common issue that you may find would be that although the service is running, when the user log out from the machine, then docker stops working.

Error during connect: In the default daemon configuration on Windows, the docker client must be run with elevated privileges to connect.: Post
open //./pipe/docker_engine: The system cannot find the file specified
Process exited with code 1

In order to bypass this behavior you can leave the user session online inside the server by using lock instead of sign out in the windows server machine.

Given that the machine restarts, the docker service will stop working on the background. In order to bypass this problem you can use an external utility from sysinternals in order to auto logon the user.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autologon

When you unzip the download, you can notice the exe application which you should run and input the user password.

Then an automatic logon will be configured using the password that you provided but is stored encrypted on the machine.

After the reboot, the docker desktop service will run without any manual action.

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Start windows service with powershell

Sometimes the windows services manager may not be enough for interaction with the services. Using the GUI you can set a service to start on startup by changing the status from Manual to Automatic but there could be cases that you want to execute this functionality with powershell. A reason for that could be a failure on the service startup that you want to check through code.

Using powershell you can check if a service is running with Get-Service. The below example checks if docker service is running and if not it will print a message on the output of the command line.

if (-not((Get-Service -Name "com.docker.service").Status -eq "Running")) { echo not running }

We can now check how to implement the start of the service using powershell. As shown below the docker desktop service is not running at the moment.

 if (-not((Get-Service -Name "com.docker.service").Status -eq "Running")) { Start-Service -Name "com.docker.service" }

After running the powershell above, we will get the service started.

Using the powershell you can create an automatic job with task scheduler and check this behavior on the computer startup.

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Error while proxying request: getting credentials: exec: executable kubelogin not found

For those who do not know Lens, it is a powerful IDE tool for managing Kubernetes. When it comes to k8s administration, sometimes command line would be a pain for engineers so various companies create tools that can provide the same functionality with a modern GUI. Such tool is Lens and you can find it using the link below.

https://k8slens.dev/

After you setup Lens you may encounter an error when you try to connect to your k8s cluster.

The error indicates that you are missing kubelogin tool. You can verify that by typing kubelogin –version in the command line. If you get an error you should go and install the tool.

Following the instructions provided by the documentation you will be able to install kubelogin.

https://github.com/Azure/kubelogin

I personally used the setup for windows through powershell.

After you install kubelogin, close and open the application again so that the PATH settings get updated. Finally you will be able to browse your cluster with Lens.

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Pass variables values inside terraform modules

In this article I will explain two different ways to pass variables values inside terraform modules. Modules let you separate your code into small units and help the engineer structure its project better.

https://www.terraform.io/language/modules/syntax

Modules in terraform (terraform files) can be placed on folders and their location should be provided on the module directive. Lets say for example that you host a main.tf on your current working directory which should call two modules. The first module would be a storage account and the second would be an app service. Your main.tf file should look like below.

module "app_service_test" {
  source                  = "./modules/appservice"
}
module "storage_account_test" {
  source                  = "./modules/storageaccount"
}

However you want to pass some variables inside the child modules for example the resource group name, location etc.

First method – Define variables on root module

The first way you can pass variables inside your child modules would be to define a variables.tf file on your main module and a terraform.tfvars. Then you should also define a variables.tf file inside each module and contain the definition of each module.

terraform.tfvars (root module)

app_service_plan_name   = "ger-plan-test"
app_service_name        = "ger-site-test"
resource_group_name     = "geralexgr-terraform-rg"
resource_group_location = "West Europe"
storage_account_name    = "geralexgrsgv2"

variables.tf (root module)

variable "storage_account_name" {
  type        = string
  description = "Storage account name"
  default     = ""
}

variable "resource_group_name" {
  type        = string
  description = "RG name in Azure"
}

variable "app_service_plan_name" {
  type        = string
  description = "App Service Plan name in Azure"
}

variable "app_service_name" {
  type        = string
  description = "Name for the app service"
}

variable "resource_group_location" {
  type        = string
  description = "RG location in Azure"
}

variables.tf (storageaccount module)

variable "storage_account_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "Storage account name"
}
variable "resource_group_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG name in Azure"
}

variable "resource_group_location" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG location in Azure"
}

variables.tf (appservice module)

variable "app_service_plan_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "App Service Plan name in Azure"
}

variable "app_service_name" {
    type = string
    description = "Name for the app service"
}
variable "resource_group_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG name in Azure"
}

variable "resource_group_location" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG location in Azure"
}

Then on your main module you should call your child modules as follows:

module "app_service_test" {
  source                  = "./modules/appservice"
  app_service_plan_name   = var.app_service_plan_name
  app_service_name        = var.app_service_name
  resource_group_name     = var.resource_group_name
  resource_group_location = var.resource_group_location
}

module "storage_account_test" {
  source                  = "./modules/storageaccount"
  storage_account_name    = var.storage_account_name
  resource_group_name     = var.resource_group_name
  resource_group_location = var.resource_group_location
}

Second method – Pass variables on module call

With this approach you do not need to have variables.tf file and terraform.tfvars file inside your root module. You only need the definition as described above inside appservice and storageaccount folders (variables.tf).

variables.tf (appservice module)

variable "app_service_plan_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "App Service Plan name in Azure"
}

variable "app_service_name" {
    type = string
    description = "Name for the app service"
}
variable "resource_group_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG name in Azure"
}

variable "resource_group_location" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG location in Azure"
}

variables.tf (storageaccount module)

variable "storage_account_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "Storage account name"
}
variable "resource_group_name" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG name in Azure"
}
variable "resource_group_location" {
    type        = string
    description = "RG location in Azure"
}

Then your main.tf file should be:

module "app_service_test" {
  source                  = "./modules/appservice"
  app_service_plan_name   = "ger-plan-test"
  app_service_name        = "ger-site-test"
  resource_group_location = "West Europe"
  resource_group_name     = "geralexgr-terraform-rg"
}

module "storage_account_test" {
  source                  = "./modules/storageaccount"
  storage_account_name    = "geralexgrsgv2"
  resource_group_name     = "geralexgr-terraform-rg"
  resource_group_location = "West Europe"
}