Recently, I’ve been putting together a continuous delivery pipeline (using VSTS) for our Azure API Management service using Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates. One of the things I needed to be able to do to secure this service properly is to disable TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1 and 3DES. This is pretty easy to do in the portal:
However, we only allow changes to be made via our continuous delivery pipeline (a good thing by the way) then I had to change the ARM template.
If you’re just getting started with Cosmos DB, you might not have come across users and permissions in a Cosmos DB database. However, there are certain use cases where managing users and permissions are necessary. For example, if you’re wanting to be able to limit access to a particular resource (e.g. a collection, document, stored procedure) by user.
The most common usage scenario for users and permissions is if you’re implementing a Resource Token Broker type pattern, allowing client applications to directly access the Cosmos DB database.
One thing I’ve found with configuring Azure services using automation (e.g. Azure PowerShell Modules, Azure Resource Manager template) is that the automation features are a little bit behind the feature set. For example, the Azure PowerShell modules may not yet implement settings for new or preview features. This can be a an issue if you’re strictly deploying everything via code (e.g. infrastructure as code). But if you run into a problem like this, all is not lost.
When creating a scheduled task in PowerShell you may wish to set the Execution Time Limit of the task to be unlimited (no time limit).
This will prevent the task from being terminated if it is still running after a specific period of time.
Creating scheduled tasks using PowerShell is pretty easy using the *-ScheduledTask* cmdlets in Windows Server 2012 and above.
However, after working on this issue in the xScheduledTask DSC resource in the Microsoft DSC Resource Kit I found that there are some differences in how to do this between Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016.
One of the features I’m most fond of in Visual Studio Code is the Format Document feature that is built into Visual Studio Code.
Side Note: If you’re writing PowerShell scripts or modules then you should be using Visual Studio Code. You should only be using PowerShell ISE if you don’t have the ability to install Visual Studio Code.
The Format Document feature can be used in many different document types in Visual Studio Code to correct the layout based on your user settings or the workspace settings for the project you’re working on.
