The 0.74.0 release introduces a new hook to package authors: the install hook. The install hook runs when a package is first installed. This hook is unique in that it runs outside of a service or census context. With all other hooks, like init and run just to name a couple, the owning package must […]
Read MoreAuthor: Matt Wrock
I am a software developer for Chef and much of my focus has been making Chef better on Windows. When not developing Chef code, I'm usually contributing to other projects in the Chef ecosystem. I regularly contribute to the WinRM gem and Vagrant, I am a member of the core Chocolatey team, author of Boxstarter and was an early contributor to Pester creating its Powershell Mocking functionality. I am a former Microsoft engineer and write regularly on Windows automation topics at hurryupandwait.io
Packaging COTS Applications for Windows
Habitat application packaging typically falls into one of two main categories: Packaging applications built from source code developed in-house or available via open source. Packaging commercial off the shelf (COTS) applications usually purchased from a third party vendor. Habitat plan development patterns and issues to be considered at build and run time vary greatly between […]
Read MoreA Plan for Microsoft SQL Server
If you develop or support applications on Windows, chances are that you have crossed paths or even worked deeply with Microsoft’s SQL Server database. In the 14 years I spent as a .Net developer, its by far the database I worked with most extensively. I’ve been using MySQL for all of my .Net Habitat demos […]
Read MorePackaging a .Net Windows Service Application
This post will demonstrate how to package a .Net Windows service application using Habitat. A Windows service application provides some interesting challenges to Habitat packaging because the application process is ultimately controlled by the Windows Service Control Manager (SCM). It runs outside of the Habitat Supervisor process tree. It also requires some initial setup when […]
Read MoreExporting Windows Packages to Docker
Yesterday’s Habitat 0.50.0 release introduces the ability to export a Windows package to a Docker Windows container. This is great for multiple reasons! For starters: You can easily test multi supervisor configurations without provisioning VMs or fiddling with alternate supervisor ports. Habitat becomes a great onboarding path to containerizing your Windows applications. The containerization gives […]
Read MoreWindows Container Studio
We launched a Windows Studio earlier this year that provides a “kind of” isolated environment for your Windows Habitat builds. It restricts your path to only include the Windows system root and vital Habitat Studio packages. It also creates a Powershell drive rooted in a separate Habitat Studio filesystem directory. This environment is certainly better […]
Read MoreRunning Habitat as a Windows Service
You can now run Habitat on Windows as a Windows Service. This is the recommended way to run a Windows Habitat production environment. All of the Windows service functionality resides in a new package core/windows-service. This includes a small C# program that implements the service loop that starts and stops the Habitat service and redirects […]
Read MoreModernize your Java development workflow with Habitat
This week I had the honor of speaking at Microsoft Azure’s Opendev, which hosted a variety of speakers from various cool open source projects and I represented Habitat. I raced through a tour of building a distributed Java web application in Habitat. I showed the application running in a local Habitat Supervisor and also had […]
Read MoreRunning a Full Framework ASP.NET IIS application in Habitat
For the past several months we have been working hard to provide full feature parity accross all Habitat components on Windows. We often use an ASP.NET Core plan to test Windows functionality because building and running a .NET Core application is very similar to developing a Node application not to mention many other runtimes that […]
Read MoreHabitat on Windows!
We are pleased to announce that the latest release of Habitat – v0.25.0 – brings Habitat to Windows! This functionality has been evolving steadily for the last several months and has been available in various pieces along the way. Perhaps you have seen my demo showing where we were back in March. Well with v0.25.0, […]
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