Discover how to run Podman on macOS using a virtual machine, enabling Docker compatibility and container management.

Running Podman on macOS

Last weekend I posted about Docker Desktop Alternatives for macOS, and it looks like I missed one as the week before Podman↗ release version v3.3.0↗ which introduced support for macOS by allowing you to launch a Podman managed virtual machine. So, What is Podman? Podman is a daemonless container engine for developing, managing, and running OCI Containers on your Linux System. Containers can either be run as root or in rootless mode....

September 12, 2021 · 8 min · Russ McKendrick
Explore Docker Desktop alternatives for macOS: Lima, Rancher Desktop, and Minikube offer containerization and Kubernetes clustering solutions.

Docker Desktop Alternatives for macOS

After the news earlier this week that Docker will be introducing charges to the Docker Subscription Service Agreement, as detailed in the Tweet below: We're updating and extending our product subscriptions! New subscription tiers include Personal, Pro, Team, and Business. Details here: https://t.co/pyDetDKGjC #Docker #Subscriptions pic.twitter.com/Or8l6YoIUO — Docker: Build 39X Faster (@Docker) August 31, 2021 I started to think about looking at alternatives, while I use Docker Desktop I did not use it enough to warrant looking at one of the new subscriptions....

September 5, 2021 · 12 min · Russ McKendrick
Notes on Terraform Azure deployments: diagnostic settings, expiration dates, Azure Automation Account web hooks.

Some Terraform Azure Notes

I have just finished working on a few large Terraform Azure deployments, thought I would stick a few notes down in a blog post so that I can refer to them in the future as well as hopefully being useful to others. Azure Diagnostic Settings While the azurerm_monitor_diagnostic_setting resource can be used to apply diagnostic settings to pretty much any other resource, however, as each resource has different logs and metrics figuring them out can be a chore....

August 30, 2021 · 5 min · Russ McKendrick
Explore Packer's use with Rocky Linux. Migrate CentOS projects efficiently. Use provided templates for Virtualbox and VMWare.

Rocky Linux and Packer

It has been a while since I last looked at running Packer↗ locally, when I did CentOS 8 had just been released. Since then, there has been a little drama around the on-going support of CentOS which is best summed up by the following post in /r/sysadmin/↗ : Off the back of this announcement the Rocky Linux project↗ has been announced, developed and then released. The project describes itself as follows:...

August 28, 2021 · 4 min · Russ McKendrick
Track Terraform costs with Infracost. Install, register, and monitor changes in your Azure DevOps pipeline efficiently.

Tracking costs in Terraform using Infracost

In my last blog post I introduced a stage which executed Checkov↗ to my Terraform Azure DevOps pipeline, this scanned the Terraform configuration and stopped the deployment if there was an issue. I also added a stage which checks to see if there are any resources being destroyed. Whats missing? Both of these I thought should give some basic protection against problems caused by common configuration issues, which they did, but it didn’t take into account the end user, i....

August 24, 2021 · 14 min · Russ McKendrick
Setting up an Azure DevOps pipeline for Terraform deployments with Checkov scans, validation, and manual approval steps.

Azure DevOps Terraform Pipeline with Checkov & Approvals

It’s been just over a year since I first posted about the Azure DevOps Terraform Pipeline I used to use↗ , I say used to use, because that pipeline is now a little outdated. This posts covers the updated Pipeline I am starting to deploy along side my Terraform code. Pipeline Overview The pipeline itself has expanded a little and it now not only uses stages but also depending what Terraform is planning on doing it will trigger a manual approval process should there be any resources being destroyed....

June 8, 2021 · 13 min · Russ Mckendrick
Learn how to implement multi-stage pipelines in Azure DevOps for efficient deployment workflows with approval gates and infrastructure setup.

Azure DevOps Multi-Stage Pipelines

As I move into using Azure DevOps more and more, there is one thing which I really haven’t got on with and that is release pipelines. I didn’t like that I couldn’t easily define it as YAML like I could with build pipelines, even though I don’t like them, there are a few things I do like — like approval gates. Environments Luckily, there are ways to get around this — the most simple way is to add an Environment and then add an Approval....

April 25, 2021 · 7 min · Russ Mckendrick
Discover Russ Mckendrick's top 20 vinyl records of 2020 featuring a diverse selection of music genres.

Top 20ish Records of 2020

A little late, but there are my top 20 records of 2020, as per previous years these are all ones which I have purchased on vinyl. bdrmm - Bedroom↗ Doves - The Universal Want↗ Pure Reason Revolution — Eupnea↗ Orb — Abolition Of The Royal Familia↗ The Smashing Pumpkins — Cyr↗ Andy Bell — The View From Halfway Down↗ Ulver — Flowers Of Evil↗ Church Of The Cosmic Skull — Everybodys Going To Die↗ Jim Bob — Pop Up Jim Bob↗ Matt Berry — Phantom Bird↗ Working Mens Club — Working Mens Club↗ Crippled Black Phoenix — Ellengast↗ Bruce Springsteen — Letter To You↗ And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead — X: The Godless Void And Othe Stories↗ The Pineapple Thief — Versions Of The Truth↗ Ozric Tentacles — Space For The Earth↗ Abel Ganz — The Life Of The Honeybee Other Moments Of Clarity↗ Sparks — A Steady Drip Drip Drip↗ EOB — Earth↗ Badly Drawn Boy — Banana Skin Shoes↗ Katatonia — City Burials↗ Kavus Torabi — Hip To The Jag↗

January 22, 2021 · 1 min · Russ Mckendrick