Automation

Docker for Windows: Deploying a docker-compose app to local Kubernetes

By Marc Esher

This is part of a series on moving from desktop Linux back to Windows. The first post is here. The previous post is here. Note: This post assumes familiarity with Docker and a working Docker for Windows environment (perhaps from reading the previous post), and at least a basic understanding of what Kubernetes is. It does not assume any experience with Kubernetes. Introduction Recently, Docker announced that Docker for Windows has started bundling an integrated Kubernetes, so that we can more easily experiment locally with deploying to Kubernetes in a similar manner as we might deploy to a proper Kubernetes environment. … Continue reading Docker for Windows: Deploying a docker-compose app to local Kubernetes

Goin’ back to Windows: Launchy

By Marc Esher

This is part of a series on moving from desktop Linux back to Windows. The first post is here. The previous post is here. A very long time ago, before I had ever used Mac or Linux for personal computing, someone had convinced me of the value of a “launcher”: a program, usually invoked via alt-space, that would pop up a box and help you find stuff on your computer, launch programs / scripts, do quickie things like calculations, and otherwise keep your hands on the keyboard and off of the mouse. At that time, the only game in town … Continue reading Goin’ back to Windows: Launchy

The Curious Case of the Slow Jenkins Job

By Marc Esher

When I started work this morning, I expected a normal manager day: emails, meetings, shepherding some proposed infrastructure changes through our change management process. That was not to be. What followed instead was most of the day on the edge of my limited Linux troubleshooting abilities, trying to diagnose performance degradation on our production Jenkins server. Around 10:30 AM, Andy messaged me: “Anecdotal Jenkins slowness. Something that regularly takes 3 minutes on my machine takes 18 minutes on Jenkins” This is a story about troubleshooting. Prologue: The environment This story’s main characters are RHEL, Jenkins, New Relic, job-dsl-plugin, and the … Continue reading The Curious Case of the Slow Jenkins Job

Going Serverless: using Twilio and AWS Lambda to make phone calls with an AWS IoT button

By Marc Esher

  Credit Full credit for this idea and post goes to my colleague Andy, who presented this approach at a recent lunch-and-learn at work. A few months after his presentation, I decided to try replicating what he did. This blog post represents what I learned from that effort. Thanks Andy! The Goal For the 3 phones in our house, when one is misplaced, press an Amazon IoT button and have it dial the phone. A single click should call one phone number, double click another, and long click the third number. Then, the phone would ring, and I would listen … Continue reading Going Serverless: using Twilio and AWS Lambda to make phone calls with an AWS IoT button

Jenkins-as-code: comparing job-dsl and Pipelines

By Marc Esher

In the previous post in this series, I covered my favorite development-time helper: running job scripts from the command line. In this post, I’ll cover the differences between job-dsl and Pipelines, and how I currently see the two living together in the Jenkins ecosystem. job-dsl refresher If you’re coming into this post directly, without reading the preceding articles in the series, I strongly encourage you to start at the start and then come back. For the rest of you, a quick refresher: job-dsl is a way of creating Jenkins jobs with code instead of the GUI. Here’s a very simple example: View the code … Continue reading Jenkins-as-code: comparing job-dsl and Pipelines