Author: sandeeppote

Setup Sitecore OrderCloud Headstart Seller UI – Part 3

Part 1 using offline Azure resource and Part 1 using online Azure resources gives a walkthrough on setting Sitecore Ordercloud Headstart pre-requisites. While Part 2 helps setup middleware.

In this blog we are setting the Sitecore Ordercloud Headstart UI for Seller

Step 1- Setup the UI project

Install node js – https://nodejs.org/en/download/

Open the Seller UI project in Visual Studio Code (prefered) from /src/UI/Seller folder

Step 2 – Change configuration defaultadmin-test.json

Navigate to – \src\UI\Seller\src\assets\appConfigs\defaultadmin-test.json

Change the highlighted values-

Change Client ID

This is a Seller Client ID. In Part 1 response to the seed also provided Seller Client ID.Use the same clinet id here

OR

Goto the marketplace you have created earlier and API Client to copy the Default HeadStart Admin UI ID

Copy the ID in clientID below-

{
  "hostedApp": true,
  "marketplaceID": "ocdockertest",
  "marketplaceName": "Default Admin",
  "appname": "Default Admin",
  "clientID": "your-seller-client-id",
  "middlewareUrl": "https://localhost:5001",
  "translateBlobUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1/ngx-translate/i18n/",
  "supportedLanguages": ["en", "fr", "jp"],
  "defaultLanguage": "en",
  "blobStorageUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1",
  "orderCloudApiUrl": "https://sandboxapi.ordercloud.io"
}

Change the storage account created in Step 1

Keep everything else as is or you may change as per your configuration.

Step 3 – Change/Check the configuration environment.local.json

Navigate to \src\UI\Seller\src\environments\environment.local.ts

Change/Check useLocalMiddleware=true if not already set.

Change/Check localMiddlewareURL = ‘https://localhost:5001’

Step 4 – Setup the App Configuration either using appSettings or Azure App Configuration

Setup a App Configuration using appSettings.json

Use/Download the template here provided by Sitecore to setup the configuration

Create a json file on your local machine by copying the content in the template. In my case I have created OCHeadstartConfig.json. The template looks as below- Highlighted values are the minimum configuration required for Headstart project. Few of the configuration will come from the Seed step explained in Part-2Step 4 – Populate Ordercloud Markeplace with the seed request

Following configuration(highlighted) needs to be updated minimum to get the Headstart project working-

OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientID

OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientSecret

OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceID

OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceName

{
"ApplicationInsightsSettings:InstrumentationKey": "",
"AvalaraSettings:AccountID": "0",
"AvalaraSettings:BaseApiUrl": "https://sandbox-rest.avatax.com/api/v2",
"AvalaraSettings:CompanyCode": "",
"AvalaraSettings:CompanyID": "0",
"AvalaraSettings:LicenseKey": "",
"CardConnectSettings:Authorization": "",
"CardConnectSettings:AuthorizationCad": "",
"CardConnectSettings:BaseUrl": "cardconnect.com",
"CardConnectSettings:CadMerchantID": "",
"CardConnectSettings:Site": "fts-uat",
"CardConnectSettings:UsdMerchantID": "",
"CosmosSettings:DatabaseName": "",
"CosmosSettings:EnableTcpConnectionEndpointRediscovery": "false",
"CosmosSettings:EndpointUri": "",
"CosmosSettings:PrimaryKey": "",
"CosmosSettings:RequestTimeoutInSeconds": "15",
"EasyPostSettings:APIKey": "",
"EasyPostSettings:FreeShippingTransitDays": "3",
"EasyPostSettings:NoRatesFallbackCost": "20",
"EasyPostSettings:NoRatesFallbackTransitDays": "3",
"EnvironmentSettings:AppTimeoutInSeconds": "30",
"EnvironmentSettings:BuildNumber": "",
"EnvironmentSettings:Commit": "",
"EnvironmentSettings:Environment": "Test",
"EnvironmentSettings:MiddlewareBaseUrl": "",
"EnvironmentSettings:TaxProvider": "Avalara",
"FlurlSettings:TimeoutInSeconds": "40",
"OrderCloudSettings:ApiUrl": "https://sandboxapi.ordercloud.io",
"OrderCloudSettings:IncrementorPrefix": "DB_TEST",
"OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceID": "<<market place id >>",
"OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceName": "<<market place name>>",
"OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientID": "<<Middleware ClientId>>",
"OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientSecret": "<<middleware client secret>>",
"OrderCloudSettings:WebhookHashKey": "<<webhook key>>",
"OrderCloudSettings:ClientIDsWithAPIAccess": "<<Enter the Seller or Buyer ClientID's sperated with comma>>"
"SendGridSettings:ApiKey": "",
"SendgridSettings:BillingEmail": "",
"SendgridSettings:CriticalSupportEmails": "",
"SendgridSettings:CriticalSupportTemplateID": "",
"SendgridSettings:FromEmail": "",
"SendgridSettings:LineItemStatusChangeTemplateID": "",
"SendgridSettings:NewUserTemplateID": "",
"SendgridSettings:OrderSubmitTemplateID": "",
"SendgridSettings:PasswordResetTemplateID": "",
"SendgridSettings:ProductInformationRequestTemplateID": "",
"SendgridSettings:QuoteOrderSubmitTemplateID": "",
"SendgridSettings:SupportCaseEmail": "",
"SmartyStreetSettings:AuthID": "",
"SmartyStreetSettings:AuthToken": "",
"SmartyStreetSettings:RefererHost": "",
"SmartyStreetSettings:WebsiteKey": "",
"StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameCache": "cache",
"StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameExchangeRates": "currency",
"StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameQueue": "queue",
"StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameTranslations": "ngx-translate",
"StorageAccountSettings:BlobPrimaryEndpoint": "http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1",
"StorageAccountSettings:ConnectionString": "<<copy Connectionstring from Storage explorer >>",
"UI:BaseAdminUrl": "",
"ZohoSettings:AccessToken": "",
"ZohoSettings:ClientId": "",
"ZohoSettings:ClientSecret": "",
"ZohoSettings:OrgID": "",
"ZohoSettings:PerformOrderSubmitTasks": "false"
}

Get the StorageAccount.Settings.ConnectionString from Storage Explorer-

Create appSettings.json file and copy the above configuration in the file.

appSettings.json file should be in Headstart.API project-

IMP – Check if the middleware applicaiton is running and listening to localhsot 5001 port. If not you should run the Headstart.Api before running UI application.

Setup a App Configuration using Azure App Configuration

Get the configuration connection string

Goto the Access Keys – Read-only keys tab and copy the connection string

Add a new Environment Variable named – APP_CONFIG_CONNECTION and copy the connection string in the Value.

Run the middleware application with the Demo profile.

IMP – If you see compiler error’s whilst running the application. See this blog for the resolution.

Step 5 – Run the Seller UI application

Now that we have all the required configuration checked and changed, time to run the Seller UI application

RUN – from the visual studio terminal or powershell

npm install
npm run start

Now we have Seller application runing on localhost:4200 port

Provide Admin Username and Password as noted in Part -1 of the blog Step 3- Prepare Seed Request

After successful login-

Also we can see the Seller Admin-

Hope you enjoyed setting Sitecore Ordercloud Headstart 🙂

Setup Sitecore OrderCloud Headstart Project – Part 2

This blog will walkthrough step by step to setup OrderCloud Headstart Solution on your development machine.

You may want to first see Part 1 with Azurite or through Azure resources

Headstart project and instructions are here

In this blog we are setting the Sitecore Ordercloud Headstart middleware

Step 1- Create a Sitecore OrderCloud Marketplace

See this blog to setup the OrderCloud Marketplace

Create a new maketplace e.g.- OrderCloudHeadstart in Us-West region

IMP– At the time this blog was written looks like only Us-West region is supported when a seed request is sent. This may change in future but connect to OrderCloud team is you want this to be in region other than Us-West

Note the newly created Marketplace ID – in my case it is – OrderCloudHeadstart

If you havent provided the Marketplace ID whilst creating the OrederCloud will create once for you. You can find the same in the Marketplace.

Navigate to API Console and Get the Admin User, as you see there are no Admin users. You may also check other endpoints.

Step 2 – Setup Middleware

Clone headstart repository – https://github.com/ordercloud-api/headstart.git

Open Headstart.sln in src/Middleware. I am using Visual Studio 2019.

Open Headstart.API project proerties

Create a new Debug Profile for Headstart.Api project. Set this as Start project.

Run the Headstart.Api project and should listen to localhost 5000 and 5001 port

Step 3- Prepare Seed Request

Open postman and create a new Post request to – https://localhost:5001/seed

Use the below request body –

{
  "Portal": {
    "Username": "username@company.com",
    "Password": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
  },
  "Marketplace": {
    "Environment": "sandbox",
    "Region": "Us-West",
    "ID": "your-marketplace-id",
    "Name": "your-marketplace-name",
    "InitialAdmin": {
      "Username": "adminuser",
      "Password": "XXXXXXXXXX"
    },
    "EnableAnonymousShopping": true,
    "MiddlewareBaseUrl": "http://localhost:5000",
    "WebhookHashKey": "hashkey"
  }
}

PortalUsername – enter the portal username you used to create a marketplace

PortalPassword – enter the portal password you used to create a marketplace

InitialAdminUsername – this request will create a admin user. Enter the admin username you wish to create

InitialAdminPassword – enter the admin password you want to set

MiddlewareBaseUrl – this is not required for local build

MarketplaceID – Enter the Marketplace ID you created in Step 1

Marketplace.Region– enter this to be sandbox in this case. For the other environments you might want to user different values for Staging and Production

WebhookHashKey – Set the webhook haskey to secure your webhook request.

Postman request should look like this –

STEP 4 – Setup a App Configuration using appSettings.json

Use/Download the template here provided by Sitecore to setup the configuration

Create a json file on your local machine by copying the content in the template. In my case I have created OCHeadstartConfig.json. The template looks as below- Highlighted values are the minimum configuration required for Headstart project.

Following configuration(highlighted) needs to be updated minimum to send the seed request working-

StorageAccountSettings:ConnectionString

StorageAccountSettings:HostUrl

StorageAccountSettings:Key

{
 "StorageAccountSettings:ConnectionString": "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=http;AccountName=devstoreaccount1;AccountKey=Eby8vdM02xNOcqFlqUwJPLlmEtlCDXJ1OUzFT50uSRZ6IFsuFq2UVErCz4I6tq/K1SZFPTOtr/KBHBeksoGMGw==;BlobEndpoint=http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1;QueueEndpoint=http://127.0.0.1:10001/devstoreaccount1;",
  "StorageAccountSettings:ContainerNameCache": "cache",
  "StorageAccountSettings:ContainerNameExchangeRates": "",
  "StorageAccountSettings:ContainerNameTranslations": "ngx-translate",
  "StorageAccountSettings:ContainerNameQueue": "queue",
  "StorageAccountSettings:HostUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1",
  "StorageAccountSettings:Key": "Eby8vdM02xNOcqFlqUwJPLlmEtlCDXJ1OUzFT50uSRZ6IFsuFq2UVErCz4I6tq/K1SZFPTOtr/KBHBeksoGMGw=="
}

Get the StorageAccount.Settings.ConnectionString from Storage Explorer-

Create appSettings.json file and copy the above configuration in the file.

appSettings.json file should be in Headstart.API project-

IMP â€“ Check if the middleware applicaiton is running and listening to localhsot 5001 port. If not you should run the Headstart.Api before running UI application.

Step 5 – Send the seed request to Ordercloud Markeplace

Ensure the Headstart Api is running and listening to 5001 port as mentioned in Step 2

Send the seed request

You can see the same in application that is listening to 5001 port the request was sent to-

If you have set the request correctly you should receive the success response-

IMP – Note the below response and the request that was sent specifically Admin Username and Password as this will be required later when configuring the UI application

{
    "Comments": "Success! Your environment is now seeded. The following clientIDs & secrets should be used to finalize the configuration of your application. The initial admin username and password can be used to sign into your admin application",
    "MarketplaceName": "ocdockertest",
    "MarketplaceID": "ocdockertest",
    "OrderCloudEnvironment": "Sandbox",
    "ApiClients": {
        "Middleware": {
            "ClientID": "1141E496-8517-4953-809B-XXXXXXXXX",
            "ClientSecret": "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
        },
        "Seller": {
            "ClientID": "6E98D7A1-35E9-4156-B60B-XXXXXXXXXX"
        },
        "Buyer": {
            "ClientID": "E1EBE13C-CC74-4021-B4A9-XXXXXXXXXX"
        }
    },
    "Success": true,
    "Exception": null
}

Comments – seed response comments

MarketplaceName – gets the Marketplace name that was configured in Step 1

MarketplaceID – UniqueId that was sent as part of request and the data seeded in this Marketplace

OrderCloudEnvironment – Environment where the request was sent

ApiClients.Middleware.ClientID – Note down Middleware ClientID

ApiClients.Middleware. ClientSecret – Note down Middleware ClientSecret

ApiClients.Seller.ClientID – Note down the Seller ClientID

ApiClients.Buyer.ClientID – Note down the Buyer ClientID

Step 5- Check the Marketplace for the data been puplated

In Step 1- we saw there was not admin user created. After the seed request you can see the Admin User is created with the name mentioned in request.

Admin User

InitialAdminUser with the username provided in request is created

Also the MiddlewareIntegrationsUser is created

Buyer User

Buyer User is created-

Api Clients

Api clients created and the same was sent as response. This is used so each client have a different Id’s that helps any application to connect.

Errors-

Ensure the StorageAccountSettings:HostUrl and ConnectionString is configured correctly.

Thats it in this blog. Hope you are enjoying setting your Ordercloud Headstart project.

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Setup Sitecore OrderCloud Headstart project using Azure Resources – Part 1

Follow below steps to configure Sitecore Ordercloud Headstart middleware using Azure Resources

Step 1 – Setup a Azure App Configuration

Since we will be now setup a backend application (i.e. admin etc) the Client IDs and Client Secret that was create in Step 5 needs to be secured. This can be condifured in Azure App Configuration. See the link on how to setup this.

Use/Download the template here provided by Sitecore to setup the configuration

Create a json file on your local machine by copying the content in the template. In my case I have created OCHeadstartConfig.json. The template looks as below-

{
    "ApplicationInsightsSettings:InstrumentationKey": "",
    "AvalaraSettings:AccountID": 0,
    "AvalaraSettings:CompanyCode": "",
    "AvalaraSettings:CompanyID": 0,
    "AvalaraSettings:LicenseKey": "",
    "AvalaraSettings:BaseApiUrl": "https://sandbox-rest.avatax.com/api/v2",
    "StorageAccountSettings:ConnectionString": "",
    "StorageAccountSettings:BlobPrimaryEndpoint": "",
    "StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameQueue": "queue",
    "StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameCache": "cache",
    "StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameExchangeRates": "currency",
    "StorageAccountSettings:BlobContainerNameTranslations": "ngx-translate",
    "CardConnectSettings:Authorization": "",
    "CardConnectSettings:AuthorizationCad": "",
    "CardConnectSettings:BaseUrl": "cardconnect.com",
    "CardConnectSettings:CadMerchantID": "",
    "CardConnectSettings:Site": "fts-uat",
    "CardConnectSettings:UsdMerchantID": "",
    "CosmosSettings:DatabaseName": "",
    "CosmosSettings:EnableTcpConnectionEndpointRediscovery": "false",
    "CosmosSettings:EndpointUri": "",
    "CosmosSettings:PrimaryKey": "",
    "CosmosSettings:RequestTimeoutInSeconds": "15",
    "EasyPostSettings:APIKey": "",
    "EasyPostSettings:FreeShippingTransitDays": "3",
    "EasyPostSettings:NoRatesFallbackCost": "20",
    "EasyPostSettings:NoRatesFallbackTransitDays": "3",
    "EnvironmentSettings:AppTimeoutInSeconds": "30",
    "EnvironmentSettings:MiddlewareBaseUrl": "",
    "EnvironmentSettings:BuildNumber": "",
    "EnvironmentSettings:Commit": "",
    "EnvironmentSettings:Environment": "Test",
    "EnvironmentSettings:TaxProvider": "Avalara",
    "FlurlSettings:TimeoutInSeconds": "40",
    "OrderCloudSettings:ApiUrl": "https://sandboxapi.ordercloud.io",
    "OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientID": "",
    "OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientSecret": "",
    "OrderCloudSettings:IncrementorPrefix": "DB_TEST",
    "OrderCloudSettings:WebhookHashKey": "",
    "OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceID": "",
    "OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceName": "",
    "SendGridSettings:ApiKey": "",
    "SendgridSettings:FromEmail": "",
    "SendgridSettings:CriticalSupportEmails": "",
    "SendgridSettings:SupportCaseEmail": "",
    "SendgridSettings:BillingEmail": "",
    "SendgridSettings:OrderSubmitTemplateID": "",
    "SendgridSettings:OrderApprovalTemplateID": "",
    "SendgridSettings:LineItemStatusChangeTemplateID": "",
    "SendgridSettings:QuoteOrderSubmitTemplateID": "",
    "SendgridSettings:NewUserTemplateID": "",
    "SendgridSettings:ProductInformationRequestTemplateID": "",
    "SendgridSettings:PasswordResetTemplateID": "",
    "SendgridSettings:CriticalSupportTemplateID": "",
    "SmartyStreetSettings:AuthID": "",
    "SmartyStreetSettings:AuthToken": "",
    "SmartyStreetSettings:RefererHost": "",
    "SmartyStreetSettings:WebsiteKey": "",
    "UI:BaseAdminUrl": "",
    "ZohoSettings:AccessToken": "",
    "ZohoSettings:ClientId": "",
    "ZohoSettings:ClientSecret": "",
    "ZohoSettings:OrgID": "",
    "ZohoSettings:PerformOrderSubmitTasks": "false"
  }

Select the subscription and Resource group

Provide the Resource name in this case I have used OrderCloudHeadStartConfig

Select Location and Pricing tier.

Once the resource is created in the Import/Export option select –

Source service – Configuration file

For language – Other

File type- Json

Source file – *.json (auto selected)

Select the folder icon in Source file option and click Apply to import the configuration.

After the config file is imported navigate to “Configuration Explorer”. There are 63 config key values are imported but in template there are 64.

“SendgridSettings:OrderApprovalTemplateID”: “”, is not imported for due to some reason. Create a new manually if required. For the Demo this is not required.

Click on the values to see the values of the key that was imported-

Set the following values by Right clicking the keys. Copy this from Step 4 where the response was received from seed request-

OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientID

OrderCloudSettings:MiddlewareClientSecret

OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceID

OrderCloudSettings:MarketplaceName

Continue updating config in next section for Storage Account.

Step 2- Create a Azure Storage Account (if you already don’t have)

Create a Azure Storage Account

Follow the steps and set the configuration as per your requirements

Copy the storage account name and Storage connection string

Set StorageAccountSettings:BlobPrimaryEndpoint – https://yourstorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/occontainer

Set StorageAccountSettings:ConnectionString

Thats in in this blog. In next blog will cover setting up the UI project.

Hope you are enjoying setting your Ordercloud Headstart project.

Process to delete Sitecore OrderCloud Marketplace

Admin User who created the Marketplace can delete and Transfer the Ownership of the Account. Where the ownership is transfered to the users cannot delete the Marketplace.

To delete the Marketplace you should have first created a Marketplace and login to the portal as Admin User having Full Access.

For creating your Marketplace see this blog.

Once you have logged in to the portal from Dashboard select the Marketplace you want to delete.

In this case lets delete the Marketplace with name “OrderCloud Blog Auto Generated ID”

Once you are in the Marketplace, you should see the option to Delete since you have FullAccess

Confirmation message is displayed. Click on Send Confirmation Code

A confirmation code is sent to your registered mail.

Once you select option to Send Confirmation Code, you should receive mail on your registered email address from noreply@four51.com.

The mail should have details of the Marketplace you are attempting ot delete along with the code

Use this code to confirm the deletion of Maretplace

And the deleted Marketplace is no more in the Dashboard-

Docker Restart Policies

To setup restart policy to the container, use following command-

docker run --restart=<<policy option>> <<container>>

Following are the options for the container restart-

  1. no (default)
  2. on-failure
  3. always
  4. unless-specified

Following is the matrix for the restart policies-

* – this will start when the Docker daemon is started

Above is applicable if the container starts successfully

Live Restore

If you want to keep container running if the Docker daemon crashes or stops use the live restore option. This reeduces the container downtime due to daemon crashes or planned outages or upgrades.

Update the /etc/docker/daemon.json in Ubuntu system and add option live-restore:true

Setup OrderCloud Headstart project using Azurite, Storage Explorer and Cosmos DB Emulator – Part 1

Follow below steps to configure Sitecore Ordercloud Headstart middleware without having to provision Azure online resources. i.e. setup offline Azure resources

Online vs Local Azure resources-

Azure Online ResourcesAzure Offline Resources
Azure App Configurationuse appSettings.json
Storage AccountAzurite Emulator and Azure Storage Explorer
Azure Cosmos DatabaseAzure Cosmos DB Emulator

Step 1 – Install and Run Azurite Emulator

Install Azurite- Pre-requisite is to install node js

npm install -g azurite

Run Azurite- Navigate to the folder where the supporting files should be deployed e.g.: c:\Azurite

azurite start

OR - if you want specfic folder and in debug mode 

azurite --silent --location c:\azurite --debug c:\azurite\debug.log

Blob service should listen to http://127.0.0.1:10000

Step 2 – Install Microsoft Azure Storage Explorer

Install Azure storage explorer. Download from here

Step 3 – Configure Blob Containers

Connect to Local Azure Storage

Click on the connect to open the connection dialog box

Select the Local storage emulator

Fill in the required details

Display name

Account name – this wil be used to connect to the blob storage

Blobs port- port used to connect to the vlob storage

Queues and Tables port- port used to connect queues and tables respectively

These are the connection information (you might have to note this)-

Local account is created-

Storage Explorer is now able to conect to Local Storage Emulator i.e. Azurite

Create a Blob Container – ngx-translate and create new Virtual Directory i18n

Blob Container and folder name can be any other name. You need to configure this correctly in UI config. See this in later steps

Upload the translation file

Ideally Container, Virtual Directory and trnslation file should be created by Headstart Api. I couldn’t make it work. Hence alternative this I have attached en.json file here.

Once uploaded you should be able to see the uploaded file-

Set Public Access Level to Blob Container

Select the Public read access for containers and blobs

Configure CORS settings

CORS settings are required for accessing the en.json file to access from the local blob storage

Click “Add” to add new CORS Settings-

Following values in –

Allowed Headers – x-ms-meta-data,x-ms-meta-target,x-ms-meta-abc

Exposed Headers – x-ms-meta-*

Check for all the steps performed above the operations in Blob Storage Explorer is successful.

Reference for CORS Rule-

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/storageservices/cross-origin-resource-sharing–cors–support-for-the-azure-storage-services

Now try to access the translator file from local blob storage on – 127.0.0.1:10000/devstoreaccount1/ngx-translate/i18n/en.json

OrderCloud headstart configuration issues- resolved

OrderCloud headstart configuration issue- resolved

Error- Running the Headstart.Api with non-compatible .net framework

Resolution – Install .net core 3.1 from here

Error – while running the HeadStart.Api from the Azure Api Configuration when Cosmos is not setup in ServiceCollectionExtensions.cs

When writing this blog there is a issue whilst connecting the Cosmos service is the configuration for the same is set.

Change the code to following in ServiceCollectionExtensions.cs file-

Change the highlighted line as the empty strings are not gracefully handled.

Resolution

==> ServiceCollectionExtensions.cs

if(string.IsNullOrEmpty(config.DatabaseName)|| 
                string.IsNullOrEmpty(config.EndpointUri) || 
                string.IsNullOrEmpty(config.PrimaryKey))
{
  // allow server to be started up without these settings
  // in case they're just trying to seed their environment
  // in the future we'll remove this in favor of centralized seeding   
  // capability

     return services;
}

Error – while running the HeadStart.Api from the Azure Api Configuration when Cosmos is not setup in CosmosExtensions.cs

When writing this blog there is a issue whilst connecting the Cosmos service is the configuration for the same is set.

Change the code to following in CosmosExtensions.cs file-

Change the highlighted line as the empty strings are not gracefully handled.

Resolution- Crate a cosmos endpoint or change the highlighted line of code to-

==> CosmosExtensions.cs

if( string.IsNullOrEmpty(endpointUrl) ||     
           string.IsNullOrEmpty(primaryKey) ||  
           string.IsNullOrEmpty(databaseName))
{
   // allow server to be started up without these settings
   // in case they're just trying to seed their environment
   // in the future we'll remove this in favor of centralized seeding 
   //capability

        return services;
}

Docker FAQs

Docker Engine and Architecture FAQ’s

Components of the Docker Engine – Docker Daemon, Rest API and Docker Cli

Component that manages Images, Containers, Volumes and Network – Docker Daemon

Component that manages containers in Docker Engine – LibContainer

Container can run with Docker – Yes

Component keeps alive container even if Docker Daemon is not working – Containerd-Shim

Docker engine objects- Images, Container, Volume and Network

In Container data is writable but not persistable – Yes

Dcoker looks for images in docker hub by default- Yes

Readonly component in Docker engine – Docker Images

Default directory where Docker data is stored (Ubuntu) – /var/lib/docker

Directory where the Docker config is stored(Ubuntu)- /etc/docker

OCI stands for – Open Container Initiative

OCI specification – runtime-spec and image-spec

View version of Docker engine – docker version

Stop the Docker service – systemctl stop docker or/and systemctl stop docker.socket

Start the Docker service – systemctl start docker.socket or/and systemctl start docker

Check Status of Docker service – systemctl status docker

Debug docker whilst starting the service – dockerd –debug

Where is the Daemon file located (Ubuntu) – /etc/docker/daemon.json

Where is the daemon socket located (Ubuntu) – /var/run/docker.sock

Port to connect the docker externaly with encrypted trafic – 2376

Port to connect the docker externaly with unencrypted trafic – 2375

Start the docker daemon manually – dockerd

Default docker daemon interface – Unix Socket

Default network driver – bridge

Stop Command signals running container on STOP command – SIGTERM followed by SIGKILL

Restart policies – no, on-failure, always and unless-stopped

Reduce container downtime due to daemon failure or restart- Enable Live Restore

Docker Images FAQ’s

Default Docker Image Registry – Docker Hub

Various Image Registry –

  • Docker Trusted Registry
  • Google Container Registry
  • Amazon Container Registry
  • Azure Container Registry

Types of Images in Docker Hub

  • Official Images
  • Verified Images
  • User Images

Base vs Parent Image –

Base Image are creatged from scratch, which means its empty. You cannot create a scratch image as it is always to be used. Any other images created from Base Image but used as parent to custom images are Parent Image. e.g. Ubuntu which is made from debian image. Here debian image is a Parent Image

Docker Swarm

What is the maximum and recommended number of mananger a swarm cluste can have? There is no max limit but recommended is 7 managers in swarm cluster

Cache Busting and Version Pinning when building Docker images

docker file – Layered Architecture

Docker uses Layered Architecture. When using Docker files it creates a new layer in the image which adds additional space to the image based on the instructions for that layer.

When a Docker build command is run it proceeds from the first instruction in Docker file to the last while caching each stage so as if the build fails next time build uses cache until it ran succesully and invalidated the stage that failed and the following stage. Layers repurpose the previous layers and don’t have to build all of them again.

In below example Docker file has 6 stages. Each stage will be cached when build command is ran.

Suppose a build fails at Stage 3 due to some reason or new package has to be added the Docker will invalidate the Stage 3 and the following stages

Next time when a issue is rectified the build command will repurpose the previuos layers and build the failed stages

docker file – Layered Architecture

But in this case the repository will not be update, so how to resolve or update the repository with the packages-

Cache Busting

In this case we can to combine the instructions so the repository is updated along with packages as below

docker file – Cache Busting and Version Pinning

Merging Stage 2 and Stage 3 from the previous docker file in to single instruction will ensure the repository is first udpated and pakages are installed

Merging these stages is called as Cache Busting

Version Pinning

You can also explicity mention the version of package to be installed

In stage 2 docker file is instrcuting to install python3-pip 21.3.1 version

Best Practice-

Instructions which are most frequently modified should be at the bottom of the file and the instructions which are least modified should be at the top of the docker file

Docker storage for Ubuntu

Docker uses storage drivers to store the read-only images and writable containers

It basically has 6 layers

Read-only/Image Layers

  1. Base Image e.g. Ubuntu OS
  2. Packages/Repositories e.g. apt etc
  3. Dependencies e.g. pip etc
  4. Custom Code e.g. python code etc
  5. Enrtypoint or command i.e. excutes the program

Writable Layer

6. Container Layer

Layers of a container based on the Ubuntu image

Data and files related to images and containers are store in /var/lib/docker folder in Ubuntu

To check the storage driver used by the docker, use following command-

docker info | more

Im my case it is overlay2

You can also use this command to get the storage driver

docker info | grep "Storage Driver"

How to change the storage driver

Stop the Docker service

systemctl stop docker.socket
systemctl stop docker

Check the docker service status

service docker status

Backup the docker folder

cp -au /var/lib/dovker /var/lib/docker.bk

Change the storage driver

echo '{ "storage-driver": "aufs" }' | sudo tee /etc/docker/dameon.json
service docker start

Image credit and reference links –

https://docs.docker.com/storage/storagedriver/

https://docs.docker.com/storage/storagedriver/overlayfs-driver/