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Java,Scala,Ruby,Node.JS,Bible

[kostasmamalis]

Ansible: Prepare Windows box connectivity via WinRM

Ansible needs WinRM connectivity in order to run playbooks on windows hosts. It requires https port 5986 to be open and listening. You might also need a self-signed certificate to avoid 401 Not authorized errors.

You will need to perform the following steps:

1. Create Self-signed certificate

Open a powershell and run the following:

New-SelfSignedCertificate -DnsName my.domain.com -CertStoreLocation Cert:\LocalMachine\My

The result will look like this:

Thumbprint                                Subject ----------                                ------- 65C6C9F1B062FE48E53687AA226F6FF1655AFBCC  CN=my.domain.com

2. Start the WinRM listener and configure to use the certificate 

winrm create winrm/config/listener?Address=*+Transport=HTTPS '@{Hostname="my.domain.com";CertificateThumbprint="65C6C9F1B062FE48E53687AA226F6FF1655AFBCC";port="5986"}'

3. Allow WinRM traffic through your firewall

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName "Windows Remote Management (HTTPS-In)" -Name "Windows Remote Management (HTTPS-In)" -Profile Any -LocalPort 5986 -Protocol TCP

4. Follow the instructions found here: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/intro_windows.html#windows-system-prep

In order for Ansible to manage your windows machines, you will have to enable and configure PowerShell remoting.

To automate the setup of WinRM, you can run this PowerShell script on the remote machine.

The example script accepts a few arguments which Admins may choose to use to modify the default setup slightly, which might be appropriate in some cases.

Pass the -CertValidityDays option to customize the expiration date of the generated certificate.powershell.exe -File ConfigureRemotingForAnsible.ps1 -CertValidityDays 100Pass the -SkipNetworkProfileCheck switch to configure winrm to listen on PUBLIC zone interfaces. (Without this option, the script will fail if any network interface on device is in PUBLIC zone)powershell.exe -File ConfigureRemotingForAnsible.ps1 -SkipNetworkProfileCheckPass the -ForceNewSSLCert switch to force a new SSL certificate to be attached to an already existing winrm listener. (Avoids SSL winrm errors on syspreped Windows images after the CN changes)powershell.exe -File ConfigureRemotingForAnsible.ps1 -ForceNewSSLCert

Note

On Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 machines, due to a bug in Windows Management Framework 3.0, it may be necessary to install this hotfix http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2842230 to avoid receiving out of memory and stack overflow exceptions. Newly-installed Server 2008 R2 systems which are not fully up to date with windows updates are known to have this issue.

In order to verify the above worked you can perform a winping from your Ansible server... That it!

[kostasmamalis]

Command line arguments for Ansible playbooks

Say you want to pass a parameter via the command-line, which will set an ansible variable (which already has a default value); how would you do it?

Well your playbook.yml should look like this:

# Upgrade to latest version of My Software - name: Update my software  hosts: windows  gather_facts: false  vars:    software_version: "{{ SOFTWARE|default('30.2.1') }}"  tasks:     - name: Get latest version of Software and install it       script: ../powershell/update_beanstore.ps1 {{ software_version }}       register: SoftwareUpdate     - debug: var= SoftwareUpdate

The ansible variable is software_version whereas the command line argument you need to pass is the SOFTWARE (all caps). Based on the playbook above the default value of software_version is ‘30.2.1′. So then, how do you pass the command-line argument? This is how:

ansible-playbook --extra-vars '{"SOFTWARE":"31.2.1"}' playbook.yml  

or even:

ansible-playbook "-e 'SOFTWARE=31.2.1'" playbook.yml  

[kostasmamalis]

Upcoming SDET Meetup

Our next London Developers in Test meetup is scheduled for the 20th July at UsTwo. 

Our first speaker  Swarnim Kumari from Busuu will describe his experience of creating an automation framework from scratch; what were the challenges, as well as the victories along the way...

I will then be presenting Fluent APIs by means of Cherry Framework, which is an eco-system of micro-libraries enabling developers to create fluent automation code in small sharable modules (Missions). 

Feel free to register using the link above! 

[kostasmamalis]

Cherry Reactive (how cool does this sound)?

MagenTys recently open sourced http://cherryframe.work but we are also working on a canvas of cherry-extensions, one of which is cherry reactive. The scope of this module will be to provide fault tolerance/error-handling/event-driven mechanisms by means of mission strategies. It will also provide users with the ability to have agents reacting to custom events. The underlying technology will be akka-java based on the supervisor-child actor pattern. So... stay tuned!

[kostasmamalis]

Cognition is essential in Agile adoption

Cognition is a term which partially finds its roots to the ancient Greek verb ‘γιγνώσκω’ (gignosko) meaning ‘I realise, I visualise, I perceive’. Ever since Aristotle days, people have always been curious to explore scientifically the wondrous human mind and its ability to absorb knowledge, perform synthesis upon data and then retrieve it at the right moment. Needless to say that human cognitive processes haven’t been fully explained. However, there's been enough research on the matter, with some interesting findings that can definitely be applied in cases of Agile Adoption or Agile Transformation.

Eradication of bad habits, is it possible?

On a personal level, we tend to grow a desire to instantly eradicate our bad habits, as things that somehow have to vanish out of thin air at this instant! If only this was so easy! Life has taught us otherwise. It has taught us that we have to be persistent in order to enable ourselves to shift into a different frame of mind, so to speak. And this is what it’s all about. It’s about shifting your focus, your energy and your thinking processes into something new. Of course, in order to make the effects of this change as durable as possible it requires determination. All of the above are possible when there is a clear vision and motivation. This is what it makes us change. It’s not only the realisation of how bad our previous traits or habits were, but also a clear vision of where we want to get to - and more importantly, why we want to get there. Isn’t it the same with Agile adoption?

I once attended a talk delivered by Ken Schwaber organised by a large investment bank I used to work for. During his talk, some of the expressions he used really stuck with me. Perhaps, the more powerful was ‘..and as we know, asking a human to change isn’t necessarily the easiest thing in this world’. How true! I mean, it’s easy to repaint a room to freshen it up, way easier to refactor a piece of code if you’re a developer and so on. Change is relatively easy in many aspects of our lives. However, change of our traits - and this is what agile is all about - becoming more agile and not doing agile  - isn’t the easiest thing. But it’s not impossible. On the contrary, similar to cognitive procedures we can make great changes to the better. How?

Small steps, little victories

Have you heard the term: Agile Transformation? I’m sure I have. Not once but many times in different environments. And as much as hearing about it excites me, it also scares me every time. Because I fear that instead of proposing to your organisation a new way of working which retains the focus on the agile values of continuous improvement, people quite so often will try to radically impose Agile as a new and prescribed working process, a methodology which tells you that you have to do this and that, totally focusing on what you have to do and significantly skipping the so important step of teaching people ‘why we have to change’, and ‘why continuous improvement is good’. 

So I prefer the term ‘Agile Adoption’, exactly because it acknowledges the fact that it takes time to make changes. It doesn’t mean that an organisation should procrastinate when it comes to adopting agile principles. But it does mean that it embraces organic adoption of principles through a set of certain but gradual steps. They might be small steps but if they help you deliver better products, better services, more quality to your clients, they are nonetheless victories for which you should feel good. But how does Cognition come to picture?

Make a new start

A wise man once advised ‘be transformed by the renewing of your mind’. You have to embrace a new vision and a new set of goals. And accept that on the way you will make mistakes, because every mistake is the best way to learn, adjust and improve. Cognition is based on ‘know-thy-self’, know who you are and understand where you’re heading to. In other terms, you have to understand fully your shortcomings but your merits too. And keep ‘renewing your mind’ to repeat to yourself ‘why am I doing this? why do I have to be agile? how can this improve my work?’. In that way, patterns of the past will become exactly that - ‘the past’ - as the realisation of the more versatile way of Delivering Quality Code to your clients will increasingly prevail and become the norm in your thinking and working habits, same way as neurons create new synapses forming new thinking patterns.  

Try small changes, adjust them, make them better and keep your vision clear to everyone’s minds. That’s what inspires people, that’s what keeps agile projects going...

[kostasmamalis]

PowerShell scripting tips

@powershelldistrict

1. Always check whether a command or software is installed successfully:

function Is-Present($cmdname) {    return [bool](Get-Command -Name $cmdname -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) } function Throw-Error-If-Not-Present($cmdname) {    if ( Is-Present -cmdname $cmdname)    {        Write-Host $cmdname + " command exists."    }    else    {        Throw "ERROR: " + $cmdname + " was not installed."    } }

2. Unzip a file

function Expand-ZIPFile($file, $destination) {     $shell = new-object -com shell.application     $zip = $shell.NameSpace($file)     foreach($item in $zip.items())     {          $shell.Namespace($destination).copyhere($item)      } }

# and use it like this:

Expand-ZIPFile -File “c:\test.zip” -Destination “C:\targetFolder\”

3. Test if a file is present and then act:

if( Test-Path $file)    {        Write-Host "File was there"    }    else {       Throw $file + "is not present."    }

[kostasmamalis]

Agile Delivery 2016

Our Agile Delivery conference for 2016, organised superbly by MagenTys, was a huge success with great presentations and more than 250 attendees! 

Here’s a link to my presentation around Hands-on BDD: http://www.slideshare.net/kostasmamalis/bdd-collaboration-for-continuous-delivery

Thanks everyone for attending and our speakers for their effort and valuable contributions. Last but not least our sponsors who made it happen! Thanks!

[kostasmamalis]

Set Java library path programmatically

I recently had to work on a monolithic desktop application and had to programmatically override the java.library.path property. the way to do it is the following:

System.setProperty("java.library.path","C:\\myJavaPath\\bin"); Field fieldSysPath = ClassLoader.class.getDeclaredField( "sys_paths" ); fieldSysPath.setAccessible( true ); fieldSysPath.set( null, null );

[kostasmamalis]

My experience with Ansible & Windows

I recently got involved in a project which required Windows specific software to be installed on an AWS windows instance and I must say that, after a couple of spikes I did, Ansible is the best tool at the moment, especially when combined with chocolatey - a silent-installation tool which is here to bring an apt or brew flavour to windows users.

What is really attractive here is the ability to perform admin tasks on the box by means of the out-of-the-box canvas of modules Ansible provides: http://docs.ansible.com/ansible/list_of_windows_modules.html .

On the linux/macos box where Ansible is installed you will need to activate winrm by installing the respective python module to talk to remote windows boxes. Of course both python and pip should be installed (sudo easy_install pip can help you with that). Than add the winrm module like that:

pip install "pywinrm>=0.1.1"

You then just need to create a hosts file looking like this:

aws-win ansible_host=your.ip.address.here [windows] aws-win [windows:vars] ansible_user=Administrator ansible_password=******* ansible_port=5986 ansible_connection=winrm ansible_winrm_server_cert_validation=ignore

You can also encrypt your file by using ansible-vault. 

Your ansible playbook (e.g. to create a user) could look like this:

# My Playbook

- name: Create an Admin user  hosts: windows  gather_facts: false  tasks:     - name: Create Admin User       win_user:         name: Admin         password: "ohyeah123"         groups: ["Users","Administrators"]

You can then run the playbook as follows:

ansible-playbook -i hosts myplaybook.yml

Job done!

[kostasmamalis]

Mission Pattern

My latest article on Mission Pattern can be found here: https://dzone.com/articles/mission-pattern-a-means-to-modularise-automation-c 

It describes how you can write Modularised code by means of the micro-libraries Cherry Framework (http://cherryframe.work). No more large helper and util classes... No more long, unreadable and Multi-Responsibility classes...