I am currently planning on a type of multi-tenant system, were different resource groups with a set of AppServices are deployed for customers via ARM Templates. Hence, each customer has its own Resource Group and set of AppServices. Currently we use Azure DevOps to deploy to a set of AppServices used for Development and Quality Assurance before it gets to Production. I am now trying to incorporate DevOps into the mix, automating a pipeline creation of some sort... (it would be a copy of an existing pipeline but only changing the Target AppServices). Which is were my question comes from, Is there a way to dynamically create or edit a Release pipeline to add the deployment of those new AppServices, without the need of manually edit or create a pipeline an adding those newly created AppServices, I was thinking something around the lines of being able to copy a yaml file template then replacing the necessary info to point to those AppServices after they have been created, but I am not totally sure where could I store the new yaml file so that it is picked up by Azure DevOps, or how could I would accomplish these, with the main idea being that all of this continues to be part of an automated process (if possible).
Thanks a lot for any help, any suggestion is appreciated.
EDIT:
The question is not about how to Deploy an ARM Template through the DevOps release pipeline (I plan on using a PowerShell Script/REST API to accomplish that), instead, is about when the AppServices Resources are created, I need to deploy code to those newly created AppServices and also update that code when necessary (Hopefully through a Release Pipeline), somehow generate a new release pipeline each time I deploy a new set of Resources. So that, when there is a new update, I could easily have that pipeline triggered and that set if AppServices can be updated (created as part of the automation process "dynamically"). (I Already have a similar pipeline that deploys to a "static" set of AppServices).
This is possible as you eluded to with YAML Pipelines. Based upon the scenario you have subscribed each repository would have it's own pipeline.yml file that will define the trigger, pool etc. It would also reference a repository that will house your yaml template.
The template would accept whichever parameters you may required (resource group, app service name, etc...) The triggering pipeline associated with each repository would pass this information leveraging the teamplate.
By doing this CI/CD can be set up to trigger on the individual pipelines and deploy the appropriate code all while leveraging the same YAML template.
The repository reference would be similar to:
resources:
repositories:
- repository: YAMLTemplates
type: git
name: OrginazationName/YAML Project Name
With the call to the template being similar to:
- template: azure-ARM-template.yml#YAMLTemplate
parameters:
appServiceName: 'AppServiceName'
resourceGroupName: 'ResourceGroupName'
UPDATE
At a high level the YAML pipeline would consist of the following. If all App Services are similar as stated and ARM Templates are similar this how it could be constructed and triggered based on a folder path:
Build necessary artifacts
Publish Pipeline
Deploy Azure Resource Group Task
Deploy App Settings Task (if applicable)
Deploy App Service
Release the deployment pieces for each environment in appropriate stages to help alleviate the amount of copying and pasting each of the above tasks can be part of a template either individually at a task, combination of tasks, or all in one. This would allow for defining the YAML once and referencing it and including app specific components as needed as parameters to the templates.
Related
I use github for hosting my projects and have multiple projects in github. And I use Azure devops for CICD alone. I have a single project in Azure devops, where I create individual pipeline corresponding to each project in my github repo. All these github projects would need to use the same azure-pipeline.yml for build. So instead of keeping the same yml file in each project, is there a way I can keep this yml centrally. So that in future, if at all a change is required, I need not do it for all individual projects, instead, update the main yml template.
A single yml file where I have all the code is even possible for my usecase? Any help is much appreciated
Have you considered using templates? Essentially you have would end up with a single template containing the main build steps that is reusable and individual yaml for each pipeline that can pass parameters to the template for any differences you have between them (such as different triggers or variable values). This way you can update all pipelines by making changes to the template
Template documentation
According to your description, you may setup a repo contains all the YAML files for pipelines. Kindly also be advised that we can also keep the templates in other repositories, if we have defined the repository resources in the core YAML pipeline. Kindly refer to the sample Core and template YAML files below.
#Core YAML in Azure Repos
trigger: none
pool:
vmImage: ubuntu-latest
resources:
repositories:
- repository: GitHub_REPO_1
type: github
name: GitHubAccountName/GitHubRepo1
endpoint: GitHubServiceConnectionName
- repository: GitHub_REPO_2
type: github
name: GitHubAccountName/GitHubRepo2
endpoint: GitHubServiceConnectionName
steps:
- checkout: none
# - checkout: GitHub_REPO_1
- template: GHREPO1.yml#GitHub_REPO_1
# - checkout: GitHub_REPO_2
- template: GHREPO2.yml#GitHub_REPO_2
#Template YAML from GitHub Repo
steps:
- script: echo "This YAML template is from GitHubRepo1"
displayName: 'Template From GitHubRepo1'
By the way, we could also checkout the code from one or multiple repository resource(s) and trigger the pipeline by the commits from the repository resources. Please refer to the following documents for more information.
Define YAML resources for Azure Pipelines - Azure Pipelines | Microsoft Docs
Check out multiple repositories in your pipeline - Azure Pipelines | Microsoft Docs
I'm new to Azure Devops. I would like to have devops pipeline environments to be created automatically during pipeline flow. So the 5th line below should create environment if it does not exist:
- deployment: Deploy
displayName: Deploy job
pool:
vmImage: $(vmImageName)
environment: 'production'
Instead I'm getting:
What am I missing?
To automate environment creation I could also use Terraform but this time I cannot find terraform resource config responsible for that.
I had a similar problem and found that the documentation lists some possible reasons for why this can happen:
Quote from learn.microsoft.com:
Q: Why am I getting error "Job XXXX: Environment XXXX could not be
found. The environment does not exist or has not been authorized for
use"?
A: These are some of the possible reasons of the failure:
When you author a YAML pipeline and refer to an environment that does not exist
in the YAML file, Azure Pipelines automatically creates the
environment in some cases:
You use the YAML pipeline creation wizard in the Azure Pipelines web
experience and refer to an environment that hasn't been created yet.
You update the YAML file using the Azure Pipelines web editor and save
the pipeline after adding a reference to an environment that does not
exist.
In the following flows, Azure Pipelines does not have
information about the user creating the environment: you update the
YAML file using another external code editor, add a reference to an
environment that does not exist, and then cause a manual or continuous
integration pipeline to be triggered. In this case, Azure Pipelines
does not know about the user. Previously, we handled this case by
adding all the project contributors to the administrator role of the
environment. Any member of the project could then change these
permissions and prevent others from accessing the environment.
If you are using runtime parameters for creating the environment, it
will fail as these parameters are expanded at run time. Environment
creation happens at compile time, so we have to use variables to
create the environment.
A user with stakeholder access level cannot create the environment as
stakeholders do not access to repository.
In our case, the problem was using runtime parameters for creating the environment.
You have the environment name 'production' hardcoded, so your problem might be related to one of the other cases.
Summary: We have Below mentioned release pipelines
1. Release1 -This pipeline will create resources like Application insights, App service plan, Key vault. (ARM files -azuredeploy.json and azuredeployparameters.json)
2. Release2 Pipeline: This pipeline will create resources like App service/Function App using Release1 components like Application insights, App service plan, Key vault. (ARM files -azuredeploy.json and azuredeployparameters.json)
We have multiple micro services In Release2 pipelines,
Environments like Dev, QA, Test .
Each environment has separate resource group.
azuredeployparameters.json all values are same for all services except webapp name.
Issue:If we want change or update any value in all azuredeployparameters.json files in all Release2 pipeline services, We are updating manually.
Kindly suggest the solution on below:
Can we link all our release2 azuredeployparameters.json files to one centralized azuredeployparameters.json file.
If we modify centralized azuredeployparameters.json file, it should update all azuredeployparameters.json files in all release 2 services.
You can put your azuredeployparameters.json in your central/main repo. And if you use release pipelines for instance, you should create build for your central repo and publish azuredeployparameters.json as artifact. You can later use this artifacts in any release pipeline you want. So you can get it Release1 and Release2.
If you use build pipelines also to deploy, you can use multiple repos and get source code (in release 1) from your central repo and repo dedicated to this release. In the same way you have this file available.
If you want to customize file a bit in Relese pipeline you can tokenize you azuredeployparameters.json file and replace those tokens in release. Here you have extension for this.
I have an ARM template, which I will be using it to deploy resources (Mentioned as in Azure Portal) via Azure DevOps Pipeline. These ARM templates were created using my Dev Subscription. If I need to use this same ARM template to move to production, I need to manually update the subscription id etc in the ARM template and then run the respective pipelines. Is there any way to automate this manual updation process in ARM template.
I have tried using File Transform Agent job available under Azure DevOps Release pipeline. But since the values are available inside nested loops of ARM templates, it failed. Is there any PowerShell script that will be suitable for this process of updating values.
I don't want to manually update the ids under the ARM Template. Instead, I want to update it automatically.
Set Json Property task might help to set the property with specific value.
First in the marketplace search for "set Json property" task and install it for your organization.
Then you can set the property path and the value accordingly. check here for detail usage
Instead of hard coding in ARM templates you can use parameters file. For dev and prod you can have separate files and while deploying pass ARM Template along with parameter file whichever is required.
You can use AKV (Azure Key Vault) to access your subscription details in parameter file
subscription().subscriptionid will get you the details
I have 2 components in my project and have 2 different build and release pipelines. For both of them am mentioning different paths for build and publish. In the release pipeline task "Create or Update Azure Resources" both are having same linked and main templates. But here the problem is if i deploy the second component then all the configurations and code in the first component is getting removed... Now i can see only second component configurations. I have selected deployment mode as incremental both in the pipeline and templates as well.
Since not sure what does your template.json/template.parameter.json file and your task configuration looks like, I just share my configuration for you refer.
In the Azure resource group deployment task, you can use Override template parameters to override the parameter value and this override only affect the current job:
At first deploy, I am using the name MerlinAngular. In the second deploy, the webappname and serviceplan name is Change-Merlin. You can see the second one result does not replace and override the first one.
What I am using is template.parameter.json file,
then use the Override template parameters option to achieve incremental deploy.
You can try with this way.