gpsTime

I think there is nothing more pleasing than having extremely precise measurements at your fingertips. Like time. While in the past it was quite problematic to measure time accurately (not talking about sundials, but... why not? ;)) - mankind has created one precise time source as the byproduct (read: "waste") for usage in accurate navigation: GNSS and their different kinds like GPS, Glonass, Galileo, BaiDou and others.

Taping into this time source and providing it to your local computer network via NTP has been done by countless people and is an extreme rewarding task. Is it necessary? Maybe not. Is it really cool? Yes. And now it is even easier as you don't need to configure it yourself, but can use the balenaHub and the preconfigured gpsTime project.

We do not waste time on fancy logos 😉

Basically you just need an RPi B+ (2/3/4), Micro SD Card, Powersupply and 3v3 TTL Level GPS Module with PPS Output. The rest is just done by going on the balenaHub entry shown above, creating a free account and flashing balenaOS onto your SD card, booting the RPi on the internet for the first time and let it get the needed containers. Afterwards you can use the RPi offline and still enjoy your precise time source.

A watterott CQM-M8Q Breakout and an good old RPi 2B+ are more than powerful enough

More details can be found in the Github Repo and you can work and improve that project to your hearts content. I am probably going to do an PiAndMore talk about it - and use the project myself as a block for precise timing in some support equipment.

[Win10] Random ports blocked while using Docker / WSL / HyperV

I have been using Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) and Docker on my Laptop since a long time. And during last Docker Con, WSL 2 was released to which I switched instantly - which I did not regret.

(Note: Upgrading to WSL 2 and the native Docker for WSL 2 version will cost you your containers and Docker images, there is even a Thanos meme coming around - so I have to give this fair warning ;))

However: Said Laptop started acting strange as suddenly local MariaDB instances or Apache2 did cease to work and even some nodeJS projects on port 9000. All these ports were not taken directly by any application, but somehow it did not work anymore. It turns out that a faulty HyperV update led to the hypervisor reserving too many ports across the board.

Luckily there is a solution to correct this issue as shown here by Christopher Pietrzykowski.

To make it easy and fast: Open up a powershell or cmd prompt as admin user and enter

netsh int ipv4 show dynamicport tcp
netsh int ipv6 show dynamicport tcp

If it comes up with startport 1025 and a huge number of reserved ports, you are experiencing the same problem. Please enter these commands to realign the startport to 49152 for both IPv4 and IPv6

netsh int ipv4 set dynamic tcp start=49152 num=16384
netsh int ipv6 set dynamic tcp start=49152 num=16384

after a reboot, everything should be fixed again 🙂

SonarQube 6.7 Community with Postgres 9.6 in Docker on Ubuntu

This is a very quick install for SonarQube on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. I presume you got the latest Docker CE 18.09 and docker-compose 1.24 installed.

# create folders for sonarqube files and postgres
sudo mkdir -p /var/sonarqube/{conf,data,logs,extensions}
sudo chown -R 999:999 /var/sonarqube
sudo mkdir -p /var/sonarqube/postgres
# make folder for all Docker files in home
mkdir ~/sonarqube
cd sonarqube
# create docker-compose.yml with following content
version: '3.1'
services:
  db:
    image: postgres:9.6-alpine
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /var/sonarqube/postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
     - POSTGRES_USER=sonar
     - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=sonar

  sonarqube:
    image: sonarqube:6.7-community
    ports:
      - 9000:9000
      - 9092:9092
    restart: unless-stopped
    volumes:
      - /var/sonarqube/conf:/opt/sonarqube/conf
      - /var/sonarqube/data:/opt/sonarqube/data
      - /var/sonarqube/logs:/opt/sonarqube/logs
      - /var/sonarqube/extensions:/opt/sonarqube/extensions
    environment:
      - SONARQUBE_HOME=/opt/sonarqube
      - SONARQUBE_JDBC_USERNAME=sonar
      - SONARQUBE_JDBC_PASSWORD=sonar
      - SONARQUBE_JDBC_URL=jdbc:postgresql://db/sonar
# launch 
docker-compose up -d

You can then access your SonarQube instance on http://<ServerIP>:9000 with the credential admin/admin.

[Talk] resin(io|os) and Fin Presentation

Here is my presentation about resin.io, resinOS, balena and Fin @ the internal DLR "Erfahrungsaustausch Workshop - Software-Entwicklung V: Embedded Systems" (Bremen, 16.05.2018)

resin_DLR_EAW_SE_V.pdf (6,07 MB, PDF)

How to delete Hyper-V Virtual Networkcards in Windows 10

As a "Edge" Version user of Docker for Windows, I tend to reinstall Docker from time to time, just to get a clean base. However, Hyper-V digs quite deep into the system and creates its own virtual network interfaces, which you just can't delete from the Hyper-V Manager.

Best option is to use (READ ALL BEFORE COPY AND PASTE, PLEASE!):

netcfg -d

in a Administrator CMD window.

This does only delete virtual network devices - HOWEVER, it does delete devices like i.e. your OpenVPN interface AS WELL - AND does DELETE ALL SETTINGS of other network interfaces, i.e. your IP configuration or all your saved WIFI credentials.

So use with care!

Taken from: https://serverfault.com/questions/584316/how-to-delete-hyper-v-virtual-switch-extensions-adapters-from-device-manager

[Talk] Docker Workshop Pythoncamp 2018

My Docker 101 Workshop @ Pythoncamp 2018 (07.04.2018, GFU Cyrus AG Köln, http://pythoncamp.de).

Docker_Pythoncamp2018.pdf (1,13 MB, PDF).

Sourcecode / Example can be found on https://github.com/nmaas87/docker-demo

[Talk] resin(io|os) Presentation

Here is my presentation about resin.io, resinOS and balena @ Docker & Kubernetes Meetup Feb 2018 (Heidelberg, 20.02.2018)

resin_DKM2018.pdf (2,57 MB, PDF)

Videorecording of the talk can be found here

Play with Docker - New Version Online

In case you haven't noticed, we got a wonderful Halloween Gift from Marcos Liljedhal and Jonathan Leibiusky - the all new Play with Docker is online! 🙂

If you want to revisit the changes, just watch their video from Docker Con Europe 2017!

PS: Please disable your Adblocker like uBlock Origin, that stuff can cause serious problems on Play with Docker - had to find that out myself just now ;).

Docker Con Europe 2017 - A recap

Welcome 🙂

Being an Docker Campus Ambassador, I got the oppurtunity to visit Docker Con Europe 2017 - which was an awesome experience which I want to share here. As it has been quite some time since I've been to a bigger conference - and this trip does not only include visiting Docker Con - I am going to seperate this blog into two sections.

First, I am going to go for the main take-aways, which should have been posted everywhere in the net already. Secondly, I'm going to go through the whole story and add some pictures of the beautiful city of Copenhagen.

So lets get started 🙂

1.) Take aways

Modernize Traditional Apps (MTA)

Docker has found itself a new usecase: Use Docker to deploy legacy apps in your DevOps enabled workflow. Docker does present tools for that during its keynote, like the Docker Application Converter. However, these tools are not given out to users and only work in the specific field of Tomcat Java Web Apps or IIS Web Apps with .NET. The only way to get your apps converted in a professional way, is to buy Docker Enterprise Edition and get a Docker Partner like Avanade or Amazic over to your premises and do the work for you. So it is not magic, but hard work to convert your old apps. More infos here.

Docker with Swarm and Kubernetes

Docker is going to include Swarm and Kubernetes in the future - side by side - which is awesome. However, the reason behind that might not tbe that Docker wants to do something for its users, but more for Google: In the past it was looking like Google is going to seperated from Docker and doing its own thing. So embracing Google and Kubernetes might be the thing that keeps Google from running away - and leading the pack away from Docker. I personally think that after some iterations, Swarm and Kubernetes might disappear and lead way to another tool, which consists of parts of Swarm and Kubernetes. You might want to buy KubeSwarm.com today? 😉 Oh, and if you want to join the adventure early: beta.docker.com will get you started.

Docker Certified Associate

There is a official Docker Certification available now, which can be found here. Due to beeing a Beta Tester, I was already in that program - however, the first experience was kind of rough, which should be corrected by now to a more pleasent one. To get you started, we prepared a little DCA Prep Guide on Github. PRs are very welcome!

ARM (IoT) - Resin

Finally I got to meet up with the nice guys and girl of resin.io - if you're a regular on my blog, you might have seen a load of different articles and videos about their Infrastructure platform for IoT, as well as their OS resinOS for IoT applications. Basically: They get Docker running on Raspberry Pi and similiar platforms. And they also created balena, which I already talked about in this post.

ARM (Server) - Qualcomm

DockerCon is a Software Convention by design, so vendors like Cisco had a hard job getting to people. But the hardest job among all, had Chandni Chandran and Elsie Wahlig from Qualcomm. They actually showcased the coolest piece of hardware of the overall convention (just fighting with the bleeding-edge new specialized Prototype Raspberry Pi from resin ;)) - the Qualcomm Centriq 2400 - a 48 core ARMv8 CPU - ready for datacenter usage - and yes, it does run Linuxkit! Meeting Chandni, the Product Manager for this Server Series, and Elsie, the Director of Product Management for Datacenter Technologies was a huge honor, as well as it was a blast for an ARM fanboy as I am ^^'. The cool thing about their technology is, that it might come soon to packet.net (which I did review sometime ago) - so, lets get our fingers crossed that this beautiful and awesome machine finds its way into the racks of every major hoster - and maybe onto my table 😉 [Hey, it is as cool as you could *really use it* without building a server closet around it - and.. for the other insane path - dreaming is allowed, ain't it? :3]

Monitoring

Felt like the "hot-*hit" of this Docker Con: Nearly everyone was holding up a product in that area. Be it DataDog, sysdig or Instana. However, as some booth-visitors pointed out - some of these products, like DataDog, only exist in a SaaS solution and cannot be used on-prem. Quite the security breach you got there... I would go with Instana.

Security Solutions

CyberArk, BlackDuck, Aqua Security, Twistlock and cilium - among others. I would vote for cilium, as they do Open Source.

Storage

StorageOS, Virtuozzo Storage, elastfile, NetApp, Zenko CloudServer where the main players, however, next to the raw storage, also storage adapters were available like the Zenko Multi Cloud Connector or the ever famous RexRay - it seems like quite a trend to go more and more to Amazon S3 compatible interfaces. For reference I linked only vendors which had Community Editions or Open Source Software available ;).

Virtualization

VMware, Cisco, IBM, Nutanix. Well, that was a surprise. While VMware stays on track with its vSphere Integrated Containers 1.2, Cisco trys to wrap up Docker in its UCS and Flexpod series via RedHat. IBM starts up with its IBM Cloud Private - which even comes in a Community Edition - and seems interesting. Same goes for Nutanix Community Edition which can be checked out here.

Misc

Somehow everyone seems to go out for an Enterprise Edition now: Create.io, Redis Enterprise and nginx+ (Load Balancer). But somehow, some of these corporations deserve special treatment: nginx+ is all about trust, as you get your binaries delivered without "call-home" - which is a nice thing and I would love to see this being the "norm" again. Other than that, jFrog was there with awesome coffee and lovely designed shirts, as well as Atlassian and other DevOps tool makers like Puppet, Chef and Rancher. Also - Microsoft, Amazon and Google had their booths as well but... well, that was kind of a must, so ;).

2.) The whole story

Well, now that we got through this, we might add some images to complete the overall picture ;)!

Flight from Luxemburg to Zurich

Just short before Zurich

Zurich Airport - here I got information that resins new Moby Clone balena had been released. So I just grabbed the next Wifi Connection, downloaded all files - and went back into the air - next stop: Copenhagen!

Zurich from above

balena Experiments in Flight

... and working!

Arrived in the heart of Copenhagen

My sleeping and dev place for the next days to come 😉

Skt Alban Church

Kastellet

North Atlantic House

Folketheatret

Bicycles

Soylent Green - anyone?

Food - some assembly required

Chili from Berlin, Wine from Trier and Water from Copenhagen - does taste awesome

Working on the JCTixx v2 Portable Scanner Type M / Munin

Crew on board!

Bella Center on Monday, fist Docker Day!

Already a cool start

On Monady, we got to attend the Community Leaders Summit. We finally got to meet a big part of the Community Leaders familiy, Meetup Organizers from all over the world - and other Campus Ambassadors, which was awesome. I finally got to meet Karen Bajza, Bret Fisher, Jean-Marc Meessen and Jens Doose, which was really cool :).

The obligatory picture with the floating Moby on Day 2 was even an event on which one was awarded a special pin.

Breakfast was awesome, I loved those pancakes...

... and did I mention we got a load of coffee everywhere around the Bella Center? During all that time, I could meet up with Xinity, Gildas Cuisinier, Oliver Robert and Xiaowen - waiting eagerly for the keynote.

The first Keynote was one of the biggest events

... and Modernize Traditional Apps (MTA) was the big buzzword for the days to come...

... I could not help but start hacking around with image2docker during the keynote... The results were mixed.

#dinoselfie - with Michael Irwin!

resin.io's beautiful new custom Raspberry PI Board...

..with some awesome features!

Cisco is also commited to Containers

... and jFrog had some awesome designs

OpenFAAS with Alex Ellis

Qualcomm Centriq 2400

Qualcomm Centriq 2400 - thats what I call hands-on!

Docker Party at the second evening...

...in an old train hall...

...with lots of space...

... and games!

Tivoli park 🙂

Bella Center in the morning of Day 3

The famous jFrog Universal Coffee Registry

... and the even more famous resin.io Demo -
with a Raspberry Pi - running resin.io - in resin 😉

Working on balena demos at the resin booth

Lunch was awesome, too 😉

I finally meet Chanwit Kaewkasi during a Hallway Track and as he is a fellow ARM fan - I could not help but bring him to the Qualcomm booth to get him some demotime - I think I liked it ;).

Elsie and Chandni are demo-ing LinuxKit on their new Qualcomm System

A last selfie with Karen 🙂

And I needed to pay the container bath a visit - on the Hallway Track

Leaving Kopenhagen on Day 4 - and last thing I see...

... is a container ship. Well. Ain't going to get more Dockerized than that ;)!

I was very lucky and attended the MTA Pin Challenge - during that I bumped into Mano Marks - finished the Challenge as first one, and got an custom WASD Keyboard with some nice finish. Nick Harvey found out about that - and my new job - and completely went bananas - as he figured out that this keyboard might soon receive code which could go to space... Well... Let's hope so ;).

And with that, I conclude my little Docker Con recap. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did - there are certainly interesting times ahead ;)!

PS: I heared the recorded videos are online now :3

Running resin balena on Raspberry Pi 3

Just two days ago, resin.io announced balena their new, moby based container engine. Basically, it is a Docker-dropin-replacement for IoT Devices: It is compatible with Docker and Docker Hub, gains a lot of stabilty with atomic pulls, more conservative flash memory use - as well as smaller updates due to true container delta pulls. Also, it comes bundled as single file, is smaller in size and as easy to use as Docker. So - a very good bundle.

However, this comes with the disadvantage of losing Plugin support, Swarm, Cloud logging, Overlay networking and Non-boltdb backed stores - which is a small price to pay, as none of these features are really needed in an IoT scenario.

balena is going to replace Docker in resin.io and resinOS in the near future - but I wanted to testdrive it right now, which ended up in me pluggin my Raspberry Pi 3 inflight from Zurich to Copenhagen and getting it "flying" ;).

To get it working, little is needed :):

1.) Download and install the latest Raspbian image (Stretch Lite should do the trick)

2.) Login to the RPi and run the installer: curl -sfL https://balena.io/install.sh | sh

(Always check the file before running it to shell, to be sure nothing bad happens!)

3.)

sudo balenad &

4.) Now you can use balena like docker with the command sudo balena

The whole thing works pretty good - this short scrible is just to get it working for using it in a hackish way - a real tutorial will come as soon as I get the time to make it really persistent and auto-starting... But.. Well ;). Living on the edge comes with sacrifices :).

If you're on Docker Con and want to meet up, just send me a message via Twitter, E-Mail or the Hallway Track - see you soon ;)!