David Gardiner - Windows

Trying Docker for Windows and Linux

2019-11-16T14:45:00.000+10:30

I've been spending a bit of time trying out Docker over the past few days, with the goal of making builds more reliable and repeatable.

Docker Desktop for Windows has the ability to run in Windows mode and Linux mode. Usually that means you can only run containers of one OS at at a time.

However, if you run configure Docker to enable 'Experimental' mode, then you can actually run both platforms simultaneously.

Interestingly, when you're in this mode and you set 'Windows' as the default container platform, you don't see an extra virtual machine listed in HyperV.

Here's Docker running with Linux containers:

And here's Docker with Windows containers: Notice the VM may be there, but it is not running, even when I'm actually building a Linux container when that screenshot was taken.

So with experimental mode on, how can Docker be also running Linux containers in Windows mode?

Currently it uses something called LCOW - Linux Containers on Windows.

I know Docker also has preview support for WSL2. I think the plan is that once that ships (presumably with Windows 10 20H1) then Docker will be able to leverage that for Linux execution.

So in theory, if you need to spin up Linux and Windows containers, then this is the technology that will make that happen.

There's still a few rough edges - probably why it's all behind 'preview' or 'experimental' flags.

I hit one issue where trying to spin up a Node Linux container which has a step to run yarn resulted in some weird internal error:

Step 14/22 : RUN yarn
---> Running in eb14f055a9aa
container eb14f055a9aaa23db5f35493feec9009b775c6688e3c488b26c6880517bdd9f1 encountered an error during CreateProcess: failure in a Windows system call: Unspecified error (0x80004005)
[Event Detail: failed to run runc create/exec call for container eb14f055a9aaa23db5f35493feec9009b775c6688e3c488b26c6880517bdd9f1: exit status 1 Stack Trace:
github.com/Microsoft/opengcs/service/gcs/runtime/runc.(*container).startProcess
/go/src/github.com/Microsoft/opengcs/service/gcs/runtime/runc/runc.go:580
github.com/Microsoft/opengcs/service/gcs/runtime/runc.(*runcRuntime).runCreateCommand
/go/src/github.com/Microsoft/opengcs/service/gcs/runtime/runc/runc.go:471
github.com/Microsoft/opengcs/service/gcs/runtime/runc.(*runcRuntime).CreateContainer

No idea what's going on there other than maybe I've managed to hit some issue where some API isn't implemented?

It's strange, as a different container (based on a different Linux distribution) didn't have that problem.

So it has potential, but it's obviously a work in progress.

Modifying and extending Topshelf

2019-08-17T15:30:00.000+09:30

Topshelf is a useful library if you have a .NET application that you would like to easily turn into a Windows Service.

A common approach is to create a console application, wire in Topshelf and then you can run it as either a console app or install and start it as a Windows service.

One thing I encountered this week was that by default Topshelf changes the current directory to the location of your .exe when your application runs. This makes sense because otherwise the default current directory for a Windows service is actually c:\windows\system32! If you're trying to load additional files from the same directory as the .exe then that's not where you'd want to be looking so Topshelf's alteration makes sense.

But what about for debugging?

In Visual Studio, when you press F5 to debug a web project (which is the kind I was working with), the current directory defaults to the project's directory. Again you may have logic that makes assumptions about other resources that need to be loaded relative to the project directory - if you're now using Topshelf that's going to break as the current directory will be changed. How to fix this?

Stepping through the Topshelf source code, I realised that I wanted a version of ConsoleRunHost that didn't have the calls to Directory.SetCurrentDirectory(). That class is instantiated by the RunBuilder class, which in turn is returned by the DefaultHostBuilderFactory method in HostConfiguratorImpl.

So that's the default factory, but the same class also provides a UseHostBuilder method that allows you to provide your own factory instead. That's just what I needed.

By adding my own factory method that returned an instance of my own custom RunBuilder, which then returned a custom ConsoleRunHost implementation that was identical to Topshelf's ConsoleRunHost with the exception that it didn't change the default directory.

private static HostBuilder HostBuilderFactory(HostEnvironment environment, HostSettings settings)
{
    return new MyRunBuilder(environment, settings);
}

And tell Topshelf to use this method by calling UseHostBuilder:

var rc = HostFactory.Run(x =>
{
    x.UseHostBuilder(HostBuilderFactory);
    ...
}

If you wanted to, you could even check if you were running under the debugger to decide whether to use the default or custom behaviour.

It's nice when libraries have thought about extensibility and provide hooks for consumers to swap in custom logic.

Choco list -localonly (Feb 2019 Edition)

2019-02-03T21:15:00.000+10:30

What software / applications am I using on my laptop (February 2019 Edition) according to Chocolatey? Here's an edited list of the output from choco list -localonly:

Package	Version	Comments
7zip	18.6
7zip.commandline	16.02.0.20170209
audacity	2.3.0	Audio editor
becyicongrabber	2.30.0.20161027	Icon extractor (for creating Chocolatey packages)
beyondcompare	4.2.9.23626	My favourite file comparison tool
beyondcompare-integration	1.0.1	Configure Beyond Compare for TortoiseGit/Svn
dellcommandupdate-uwp	3.0.0	Dell's driver update app
dns-benchmark	1.3.6668.0	Useful DNS checker
docker-for-windows	99.0.0.0
dotnetdeveloperbundle	2.3.0.2563	RedGate's .NET tools
dropbox	41.4.80
fiddler	5.0.20182.28034
FiraCode	1.206	Nice developer font
Firefox	57.0.4
git	2.20.1
GoogleChrome	63.0.3239.132
iTunes	12.9.3.3
keepass	2.41	Password manager
microsoft-teams	1.1.00.2251
mousewithoutborders	2.1.8.105	Share mouse across laptop and desktop PCs
msbuild-structured-log-viewer	2.0.61
nodejs	11.9.0
notepadplusplus	7.6.3	Using this less now compared to VS Code
nuget.commandline	4.9.2
obs-studio	22.0.2	Video / screen recording
OctopusTools	5.2.0
Office365ProPlus	2016.20170321
paint.net	4.1.5
PDFXchangeEditor	7.0.328.2	My favourite
Pester	4.4.1	PowerShell unit tests
pingplotter	5.8.10	Useful visual ping network status
powershell-core	6.1.2
procmon	3.50	SysInternals Process Monitor
resharper-clt.portable	2018.3.2	ReSharper's free command-line tools
resharper-ultimate-all	2018.3.2
screentogif	2.16	Handy screen recorder
skype	8.38.0.138
snagit	2019.1.0	Screen grabber
sql-server-2017	14.0.1000
sql-server-management-studio	14.0.17289.1
tailblazer	0.9.0.536	Text/log file viewer
tortoisegit	2.7.0.0
tortoisesvn	1.11.1.28492
ubiquiti-unifi-controller	5.9.29	Software for managing UniFi wireless access points
vagrant	2.2.3	Manage virtual machines
visualstudio2017enterprise	15.2.26430.20170605
visualstudiocode	1.19.3
vsts-cli	0.1.4.20190126	Command line tool for managing Azure DevOps
vswhere	2.6.7
wifiinfoview	2.42
windirstat	1.1.2.20161210	Where's all that disk space being used?
wireshark	2.6.5
x-lite	5.4.0.94388	VoIP client
yarn	1.13.0
zoomit	4.50.0.20160210	Great for presentations

This is also a good basis for refreshing my Boxstarter scripts.

Open Live Writer

2015-12-21T10:24:00.001+10:30

I’ve been a fan of using Microsoft’s Windows Live Writer to compose blog posts for quite a few years now, so when it stopped working earlier this year due to Google changing the authentication requirements for Blogger, I was a bit disappointed. The good news was that Microsoft contacted Google and (for once) they extended Live Writer a lifeline to allow it to continue to use the old API until alternate arrangements could be made.

All was good just over a week ago, when a) Microsoft released an open source version of Live Writer – named Open Live Writer, and b) Google finally did switch off the old authentication API. Unfortunately the first new release of Open Live Writer didn’t have a working implementation of Google’s new authentication API, so there was a few days of inconvenience whilst that was finished off. Version 0.5.1.2 came out last Friday and I’m pleased to find that it does work again with Blogger!

The source code is on Github at https://github.com/OpenLiveWriter/OpenLiveWriter, and there’s already an active community contributing bug reports and pull requests.

It’s great to see such a useful application given a new lease on life (or should that be ‘new lease on live’ 😀 )

Windows detected a hard disk problem

2015-08-26T09:33:00.001+09:30

I found this when logging in this morning:

And some related events in the System event log:

Log Name: System Source: Microsoft-Windows-DiskDiagnostic Date: 26/08/2015 9:20:08 AM Event ID: 1 Task Category: None Level: Critical Keywords: User: SYSTEM Computer: ***** Description: Windows Disk Diagnostic detected a S.M.A.R.T. fault on disk ST500DM002-1BD142 (volumes D:\). This disk might fail; back up your computer now. All data on the hard disk, including files, documents, pictures, programs, and settings might be lost if your hard disk fails. To determine if the hard disk needs to be repaired or replaced, contact the manufacturer of your computer. If you can't back up (for example, you have no CDs or other backup media), you should shut down your computer and restart when you have backup media available. In the meantime, do not save any critical files to this disk.

Log Name: System Source: disk Date: 26/08/2015 9:20:07 AM Event ID: 52 Task Category: None Level: Warning Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: ***** Description: The driver has detected that device \Device\Harddisk0\DR0 has predicted that it will fail. Immediately back up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent.

Log Name: System Source: iaStorA Date: 26/08/2015 9:04:54 AM Event ID: 4102 Task Category: None Level: Error Keywords: Classic User: N/A Computer: ***** Description: Error log: Smart event occured on disk :S2AXWXVT

Fortunately, this is my D: drive. There’s only a couple of virtual machines there, but nothing I can’t recreate if necessary. That’s the first time I’ve seen hard disk SMART diagnostics kick in like that.

TUGZip

2006-05-04T14:20:00.000+09:30

The built-in unzip in Windows XP is nice to have, but for some reason it runs extremely slowly if the zip has more than a few files in it. I'm trying out "TUGZip" as it also integrates with Windows Explorer and looks like it is a bit snappier in the performance stakes. It's also freeware.

Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager

2005-04-07T08:50:00.000+09:30

Download details: Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager (Standard): "Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager" Microsoft USB Flash Drive Manager will help you backup and restore presentation, pictures, songs and applications from and to USB Flash Drive devices and take them with you