Variable Substitution in non-package deploy step - octopus-deploy

I know that I can add variable substitution during package deployment, but I have a slightly different scenario. What I need to do is:
Deploy my package to the Octopus server (I have a tentacle on the server)
Substitute variables based on role/environment
Run a script against some files from that package (an encryption process)
Re-package the files and use that as an artifact for further steps in the process.
My question is - I need to substitute variables in the files that are in the package (step 2 above) - but they need to be specific to a role in the environment that they will ultimately be targeting, and not the octopus server environment.
Note that the unpacking and encryption must be done prior to further deployment so cannot occur on the target machine.
Is it possible to achieve this?
Thanks,
Sean

There is no OOB method to do this. Your going to have to cut a corner somewhere. I would personally:
add another environment called unencrypted prod;
scope your variables to both unencrypted prod and regular prod;
Add an encryption process step, and have it run only in the unencrypted prod environment.

Related

TeamCity file storage for config files

is there a way in the TeamCity to have application config files with production passwords stored in the TeamCity?
During build/deployment these files will be used for different environments.
For example in the project repository you have app.config file which is filled with Development env secrets. And you don't want to store production envs secrets in the repository.
Need exact file because it's not only a single values which could be covered with Configuration Parameters, it could be big XML pieces. So better to have a whole app.config file somewhere in the TeamCity configured which I can use to publish to production env.
Thanks in advance
As I know in Team city administration you can configure each build configuration as administrator. And for build configuration, you can find the parameters section where you can add parameters as secret values. These values would be available during the build process but they would not be logged. Hope it helps you.

Octopus deployment to same environment and different servers

I have an octopus deployment that needs to go to a load balanced environment But there are small changes in the config between the two servers.
So, in summary:
It deploys to the same environment (PreProd)
It gets deployed to two different servers linked to that environment
There are small changes between the two web.config files between the two servers.
I already have a web.preprod.config that gets transformed into web.config. Does it mean I need to create more config files, ie. web.server1.preprod.config and web.server2.preprod.config or is there another cleaner way of doing it? It is a whole section that is different so not just an appSetting.
A solution that has worked well in similar scenarios for me in the past (with OctopusDeploy specifically), is to use the web.{environment}.config transforms to get the correct config structure in place, but to use variable substitution and define placeholders in the transform file to keep the run-time environment-specific definitions in Octopus. Quite how you break down the substitution syntax is really dependent on your config, but you can use the machine-scoping features of Octopus variables to control the actual values injected.
This scenario is a good example of where web.config transforms start to blur the edges of configuration management; environment-specific config is really the domain of Octopus (or, more specifically, a centralised configuration store), but the solution proposed here is taking it out of Octopus and back into the source repository, which is one of the problems Octopus is actually designed to solve.
For example; what if you introduced a 3rd node in your pre-prod load balancer? This demands a code change, build, version bump and package, which can be completely avoided given the above.
The general approach to problems like this is, indeed, to create a web.server*.preprod.config, or local.config. I'd suggest looking at what exactly is different in the config, and why. Try to find things that you can merge. For instance:
If one difference is the difference in drive letter, and your config contains these entries:
C:/a/b/c.txt
C:/a/b/d.txt
try splitting those entries into
drive=C
drive:/a/b/c.txt
In that case you only have to change drive=C to drive=D to make two entries work.

How can I use TeamCity to do Production releases safely?

We currently use TeamCity to build a deployment artifact, then a further TeamCity task takes that artifact and deploys it to our development and testing servers on demand.
We can store the passwords and other secret data in properties files that we can check into source control, as these are all internal servers and the developers have full access to them.
However for release to Production (and our final test layer) there are secret passwords and configuration that we don't want checked into the normal source control, or to have development be able to discover the passwords. So to do 'real' deployments we have to hand the artifact over to another team and they maintain a properties file with the production values.
What methods exist to store these secrets and allow TeamCity to run a deploy without ever leaking the secrets out?
(note I am one of the devs and it is not a trust issue... I don't want to have the ability to find out prod passwords so I can never accidently know them and do some horrific damage!)
Probably what you need here, is to create a separate project with narrower scope of permissions (for example, allow only certain people to edit build configurations). In this project create a build configuration, responsible for deployment. In this configuration, you can define a Typed Parameter of type 'password' to store the password to the production environment.
Another option is to use Deployer Plugin, especially its ability to deploy over ssh with private key authentication
If you are OK to use a third party solution, consider using a solution like CloudMunch which can help you to perform release management functions with these secure parameters collected at deploy time and encrypted post deployment.
Disclaimer: I work with CloudMunch
You can do 2 things.
Use a teamcity project to deploy artefacts for production only. This will only be accessible to ops members.
Teamcity also supports running agents with different user ids. You can create a new user id which can have access to the production "secrets" (passwords and configuration). Use this id to run the targets in the 1st step.

Octopus Deploy; using parameters to define config file in transformations?

We're testing Octopus Deploy 2.0 (OD) to deploy web services, windows services and citrix applications.
QUICK QUESTION:
When using config transformation, can parameters be used to indicate which config file should be used for the transformations?
MORE DETAIL:
When setting up for config transformations, we would like to have files named
MyApp.DEV_US.config
MyApp.DEV_CANADA.config
MyApp.DEV_AUSTRALIA.config
and so on for TEST, STAGE and PRODUCTION
Our deployments to DEV, for example, always include deployments to all regions. So we would prefer if OD environments were DEV, TEST, STAGE and PRODUCTION. Then in each deployment, we have multiple steps that deploy to each region.
However, OD config transformations only look for OD Environments when looking for which config files to use as part of the transformation. It seems OD would require us to bring each region up to the environment level, which from our POV is not ideal and would clutter the dashboard.
Can we pass parameters into the config transformation process such that we can indicate which file to use for the transform?
I believe you can achieve what you are after with the following, but it will require multiple steps in the process.
Create a step called Deploy to Dev - US and a step called Deploy to Dev - Canada
Now define a variable called CountrySpecificConfigFiles and you can scope it to the required step (and environment etc)
In the Configuration transformations section for each Steps, choose the variable defined in the step above
You could abstract this further by naming your steps DEV_US and DEV_CANADA and define just the one variable value as Web.#{Octopus.Task.Name}.config without any scope to steps, or by removing the variable and doing it inline in the Additional Transforms field.

How can Puppet fit into a Continuous Delivery tool chain?

I'm investigating Puppet as our future deployment and provisioning tool in our shop, but now I'm stuck at how to make a clever Continuous Integration/Delivery tool chain with deployment through Puppet.
In any of our environments (dev, test, qa, demo, prod) we have a range of components. We need to be able to deploy each component separately and possibly even concurrently.
I'd like a way to initiate (through script) a deploy of a single component package (=Puppet module) and gather the output and success status of that.
Simply waiting for a scheduled agent pull, or doing a 'puppet agent --test' on each node on the environment isn't good enough, because it may pick up other pending changes (I don't know if another component is also in the process of being deployed).
In my tool chain I would like the deployment output and status from component A and component B to be recorded separately and not mixed up.
So my question is: Can I use puppet to deploy one single named package (module) at a time?
And if not, where did I take a wrong turn when I drove down this path?
I realise a master-less Puppet set-up with modules and manifests replicated to each node perhaps could do it, but IMHO a master-less Puppet set-up kind of defeats the purpose of Puppet.
PS: I think what I'm trying to achieve is called 'Directed Orchestration' in Damon Edwards' very enlightening video at Integrating DevOps tools into a Service Delivery Platform (at timestamp around 22:30).
So my question is: Can I use puppet to deploy one single named package (module) at a time?
Yes, you can, via puppet apply. First you need to create a moduledir and a module that will contain your manifests. e.g. :
/scratch/user/puppet/local/ # This is your modulepath for local deployment
# Following contains the manifests for a module name "localmod"
/scratch/user/puppet/local/localmod/manifests/init.pp
# example content of init.pp
class localmod {
notify{"I am in in local module....":}
}
On that local machine you can test this module via puppet apply :
puppet apply -v --modulepath=/scratch/user/puppet/local -e "include localmod"
echo $? # Get the exit status of the above command
I watched the video at the point your video. There are two types of automation you can do.
Application build/deploy automation, which can be achieved via maven/ant (Build) and ant/capistrano/chrome/bash/msdeploy (Deploy) or as termed on that slide "Installer".
System/Infrastructure automation can be achieved via Chef/Puppet/CFEngine.
This question seems to be ... "How do I do applications build using puppet (implied as a system automation tool)"
So quite simply, oval tool in round hole. (I didn't say square)
At my company, we use Jenkins and the Build Pipeline Integration plugin to build massive multi component projects. As an example, a Java app will use ant in a build job, the next chained job will be a "deploy to dev" job which uses Capistrano to deploy the application, then the next job in the chain is "Configure Dev" which calls Chef to update the system configurations in the DEV environment. Chef is used to configure the application. Each of these jobs can be set to run automatically and sequentially.
a master-less Puppet set-up kind of defeats the purpose of Puppet.
Only if you discount
The rich DSL puppet has to offer
So many peer reviewed community modules
Otherwise, something like this gives you remote directed orchestration.
#update manifests etc (version control is the source of truth)
ssh user#host git pull
#run puppet
ssh user#host sudo puppet-apply

Resources