Category Archives: PowerShell

Mounting a database from my online environment using SQL Server on the host

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

This blog post is really a combination between the last two blog posts, https://freddysblog.com/2019/11/04/using-sql-server-on-the-host/ and https://freddysblog.com/2019/11/12/mounting-a-database-backup-from-my-online-environment-inside-a-container/. As stated in the last blog post, you can only use databases of less than 10Gb in size inside the container due to SQL Express. This blog post will explain how to get past that problem. Continue reading →

Mounting a database backup from my online environment inside a container

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

Just recently, a new functionality was enable in the Dynamics 365 Business Central admin center. The ability to request a backup. It didn’t take long before I got the first question from a partner, who asked whether they could run this locally using Docker. This blog post describes how to do just that. Continue reading →

Using SQL Server on the host

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

I have had quite a few partners asking me how to connect a NAV / Business Central container to a SQL Server placed on the host. This is the way I started a blog post back in april here: https://freddysblog.com/2019/04/12/placing-the-database-on-the-host/ and elegantly, I avoided to answer the question and instead described how to place the database on the host and use the SQL engine in the container. Of course this doesn’t solve the issue if you have a very large database, which SQL Express doesn’t support.

In this blog post I will try to address the original problem. Continue reading →

Publishing a New Base Application

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

I think I have mentioned before, that I strongly recommend partners to use the extension model and create extensions, which can be published, installed and upgraded much easier then code customizations.

Having said that, I know that there are partners out there for who AL code customizations will be the right stepping stone towards adapting an extension model. Continue reading →

Using APIs on containers

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

A while ago, I added two functions to the ContainerHelper for using APIs on containers:

  • Get-BCContainerApiCompanyId
  • Invoke-BCContainerApi

In the end, these functions are just invoking a REST method on the container, so why create a function for this? Continue reading →

Running tests in 15.x insider containers

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

If you didn’t read this blog post: https://freddysblog.com/2019/04/13/running-tests-in-containers/, then please do so before proceeding. This blog post will only describe what’s new when running tests in 15.x containers Continue reading →

PowerShell for non-experts…

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

With the release of NAV and Business Central images on Docker, a lot of people who are not familiar with PowerShell will be using PowerShell. They will be handed a script to run and they will run it. Then something doesn’t work as expected – and somebody (might be me) will tell them to add a parameter called xyz. That might seem simple for people who use PowerShell on a daily basis, but not if you have never written PowerShell before… Continue reading →

Windows 10 1903 (and Business Central Containers)

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

Some weeks ago, I read about Windows 10 1903 in a blog post from Mike Fortin here: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2019/04/04/improving-the-windows-10-update-experience-with-control-quality-and-transparency. Since general rolllout wasn’t until May, I decided to wait until after Directions NA to do my update.

1903 was made available on MSDN and internally for people who wanted to update early and I didn’t really pay too much attention to this. Two evenings ago, a colleague ping’ed m e with an error when trying to create a container. Looking at the output, the containerhelper identified his Windows version as unknown/insider. Continue reading →

NAV on Docker version 0.0.4.1

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker.

Some of you might already know what lies behind this cryptic title, some of you might not care. This post describes what changed in the Generic image version 0.0.4.1, which today is the foundation of all images on the Docker hub and of course also of the generic image on the docker hub. Continue reading →

Creating workshop machines on Azure

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Update 2021/2/10: Microsoft stopped creating images for Docker in the summer of 2020. We now publish artifacts, which can be used to spin up containers and BcContainerHelper has replaced NavContainerHelper. This blog post reflects the old way of using NAV/BC on Docker and references NavContainerHelper, which is outdated.

During Directions US and Directions EMEA, we had to spin up approx. 2000 Azure VMs for our hands on labs.

All of these machines was deployed individually from PowerShell (multiple simultaneous jobs, but still one job=one VM) running on my Developer Machine in Lyngby. The scripts used to create these VMs has been shared with a number of partners with the same need. Continue reading →