Author: Brenton

Categories
Azure DevOps Cloud

How to fix Azure MissingSubscriptionRegistration error

black laptop computer keyboard in closeup photo
Photo by Tadas Sar on Unsplash

Are you trying to deploy an Azure Resource Manager (ARM) template and getting the error MissingSubscriptionRegistration? In this article we’ll take a look at what the cause of the error is, and how you can easily rectify the problem.

Sometimes when trying to run an ARM template in a new subscription to create Azure resources, customers come across the following error:

MissingSubscriptionRegistration: The subscription is not registered to use namespace 'Microsoft.Web'

The namespace may be different depending on the resources you’re trying to create – but effectively this error is telling you that for your subscription, you cannot create resources belonging to the aforementioned namespace. In the case of this example, that’s Microsoft.Web – specifically an App Service.

By default, a new subscription will have most resource providers disabled as a precautionary security measure. You can see a full list of default enabled providers here.

By having most providers disabled, compromised accounts are unable to create a raft of resources. Therefore it’s critical that you only enable namespaces you need to use.

Normally deploying an ARM template should automatically enable the resource namespace – but sometimes it doesn’t work as expected. Similarly, creating a resource manually in the Azure portal should also automatically enable the resource namespace.

Fixing this error is quite straightforward, assuming you have owner or contributor access to the subscription. If you don’t, you’ll need to get your IT administrator to make these changes on your behalf.

Open the Azure Portal, navigate to Subscriptions and choose the subscription you’re trying to deploy the ARM template into. Then, go to Resource providers in the sidebar.

Now scroll through the list of all resource providers until you see the one mentioned in the error message you received. Click the namespace to highlight it, and then choose Register from the menu bar.

This will now activate the namespace, allowing you to create resources that reside within it and thereby the error will be resolved.

Note however that the namespace may not be activated immediately – you may need to wait up to 15 minutes before running the ARM template deployment again.

The registering status shows in the portal while the namespace is being activated – so a quick refresh of the page will allow you to see when the work is completed.

Categories
.NET Core

Get started with ABP framework on a Mac

In this post we’ll explore setting up the popular ABP framework for .NET Core on a Mac with a Postgres database.

In case you’re unaware, the ABP framework offers a number of out of the box features that can save a tremendous amount of time when starting a new web application. This includes a strong and opinionated architecture based on domain driven design, as well as multi-tenancy, theming and more.

Getting your environment setup

In this post we’ll explore getting the basic ABP app with Blazor up and running on a Mac.

Firstly, if you haven’t already done so download and install the latest .NET Core 5 SDK from Microsoft’s site.

Once installed you’ll want to add the ABP command line tools. These will allow you to quickly scaffold projects and code. This can be installed by opening the Terminal.app on your Mac, and running this line of code:

dotnet tool install -g Volo.Abp.Cli

If you’re running a more recent version of macOS – such as Big Sur – you’ll now be using ZSH by default instead of Bash in the Terminal app.

Try running the command abp --help. If you get a message stating that abp is not a known command, you may need to create a .zshrc file to allow you to access the ABP CLI from ZSH. Within Terminal, run the following commands:

  1. vi ~/.zshrc
  2. Paste export PATH=$HOME/.dotnet/tools:$PATH
  3. Run the command :wq to write the file to disk and quit
  4. Restart Terminal.app and you should be able to run abp --help

Creating the ABP project

Create a new folder called ToDoProject. Navigate to it from within Terminal, and run the following command:

abp new TodoApp -u blazor-server

This creates a new .NET Core solution based on the ABP framework.

If you’re on a Windows machine, normally you would now run the DbMigrator project to setup your database tables. However by default the ABP project uses LocalDB which is unavailable on the Mac.

As an alternative, you can use Postgres which IS available for the Mac.

The easiest way to install Postgres is to download and install the Postgres.app for free. Once launched, you can then install an app like Postico or use the command line to create a new Postgres database.

If using Postico, connect to your localhost Postgres server either via the server settings within Postico, or by double clicking the server from within the Postgres app.

Then, navigate to your server within Postico by clicking localhost in the top navigation bar. Click “+ Database” and add a new database called todoapp.

Click these buttons to setup the new database

Now we need to make some changes to the sample ABP app. Open the TodoApp.sln in your editor of choice (for the Mac this can include Visual Studio for Mac, Visual Studio Code or Rider).

Next replace the SQL package with Postgres. Add the Volo.Abp.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSql package via Nuget, and remove Volo.Abp.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer.

Then follow the rest of the steps in this article to update your project files to use the new Postgres package.

Lastly you’ll need to update the connection strings for your database.

Open src/TodoApp.Blazor/appsettings.json and update the following line to connect to your Postgres database, updating `<your username>` with your database username (for a Mac this is normally your Mac login username, unless you’ve specified a new user):

"ConnectionStrings": {
  "Default": "Server=localhost;Port=5432;Database=todoapp;User Id=<your username>/;Password="
}

Similarly, open src/TodoApp.DbMigrator/appsettings.json and update the same connection string:

"ConnectionStrings": {
  "Default": "Server=localhost;Port=5432;Database=todoapp;User Id=<your username>/;Password="
}

From within your IDE you should now be able to build and run your app, or from the Terminal app run dotnet run to see your first ABP web app running!

Categories
Microsoft Graph

How to export Microsoft Teams chats

Looking to export chats within Microsoft Teams? Exporting chats from Teams is an oft-requested feature, but at the moment there’s no out of the box functionality available for end users.

If you’re an end user

If you don’t have admin rights, at present your options are limited for exporting chats from Teams especially while using a work Office 365 account.

If you’re using a personal Microsoft account with Teams, you may be able to export your messages following the steps listed here.

For work accounts, one option is to setup a workflow using Microsoft Flow to call the Microsoft Graph API and convert individual chats to HTML or a PDF file.

An alternative is to call the Graph API endpoints to retrieve messages and conversations yourself as part of your own script/program, although that has a higher degree of complexity when compared to using a tool such as Microsoft Flow. These endpoints are also in beta.

You could also open the Microsoft Teams website in your browser (Chrome or Edge) and use a full page screenshot extension to capture a conversation. Note however that you’ll need to manually scroll back through the chat to ensure that the full history is shown.

If you’re an admin

The options are still quite limited, but you can try and use the eDiscovery tools available in Office 365 to retrieve messages from channels.

Categories
Cloud

Integrating Gumroad and WordPress

Gumroad is one of the hottest new ways for creatives to sell their products and services online. And with WordPress being one of the most popular content management systems in the world right now, in this post we’ll explore how you can connect both systems together to offer paid products and services from your WordPress blog.

There are 3 ways in which you can connect Gumroad with your WordPress site:

  • Via the free, official Gumroad plugin
  • Using the HTML embed codes
  • Via a paid third-party WordPress plugin

Free, official Gumroad plugin

Free (WordPress Plugin Marketplace)

This is the easiest free way to connect Gumroad and your website. You simply install the free Gumroad plugin from the Plugins section of your WordPress administration site.

The plugin adds a Gutenberg block that can be used within your content.

Unfortunately that’s about as advanced as you can get when using the official plugin. There’s no support for syncing paying customers between Gumroad and WordPress for sites such as online courses or membership areas. For that you’ll need to use a third-party plugin.

HTML embed codes

Gumroad provides HTML code that you can manually insert on your product pages within WordPress.

You can choose from an overlay, where a customer performs the entire flow from within a modal window on your site or an embed which can redirect customers to the Gumroad site to complete the transaction.

To generate the code, simply open your product within the Gumroad website, click “Share” and copy and paste the code from either “Overlay” or “Embed” into your WordPress post.

3rd-party WordPress plugin

If you’re looking for something more advanced – perhaps to restrict your content & blog posts to paying customers – then you may want to turn to a premium third-party WordPress plugin.

ProductPress (paid, pricing starting at $39) is one of the more established products in this space, allowing you to setup sites for things like online courses and membership sites.

These plugins rely on the Gumroad API to integrate deeper into your WordPress installation – so make sure if you are using a third-party plugin that it’s legitimate and not going to compromise your customer data or Gumroad account.

Categories
Azure Azure DevOps

Getting started with Azure Bicep

black and gray laptop computer
Photo by luis gomes on Pexels.com

Bicep is a new language from Microsoft that allows you to easily specify your Azure infrastructure as code.

It’s an improvement on writing Azure Resource Manager (ARM) templates directly by better supporting features such as type safety and code modularity and reuse.

That said, Bicep still has a very close relationship with ARM templates. In fact, it’s an abstraction over ARM templates with templates written using Bicep able to be transpiled back to ARM templates. And if you have a bunch of existing ARM templates, they can be transpiled and converted into Bicep files.

Let’s now take a look at how you can get started using Bicep.

Preparing your environment

There’s a few things you’ll want to install in order to start using Bicep.

First you’ll want to download Visual Studio Code (free) and install the Bicep extension (also free). This will give you an editor in which to write your Bicep files, and the extension adds handy features such as Intellisense code suggestions and template validation to ensure the correct syntax.

You’ll also need to install the Bicep command line interface (CLI). The easiest, cross-platform way to do this is by installing the Azure command line interface. But if you’re after an alternative, see this list.

Become a Bicep guru

Dive deeper into Bicep with our getting started with Bicep course on Udemy today!

Start learning

Writing your first Bicep file

Open Visual Studio Code, and create a new file called HelloWorld.bicep. In it, paste the following code:

resource appConfig 'Microsoft.AppConfiguration/[email protected]' = {
  name: 'bicepDemoAppConfig'
  location: 'westus2'
  sku: {
    name: 'standard'
  }
}

In this template, we’re creating an App Configuration service in Azure. Lets breakdown the template:

appConfig provides a local resource name for use within the template if you need to refer to this resource as a dependency, or from within another resource.

Microsoft.AppConfiguration/[email protected] refers to the resource type and the values that can be configured. See this Microsoft documentation for a full list of resource types.

As such, name, location and sku are all values that can be set for the resource type.

Next steps

To learn how to deploy this template, or to find out about more advanced Bicep topics including for loops, conditional statements and modularised templates check out our Udemy course on getting started with Bicep.

Categories
Cloud

Setting Digital Ocean environment variables

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

Are you trying to work out how to setup environment variables for your Digital Ocean droplet or app running on the app platform? Here’s how.

Digital Ocean droplet environment variables

Setting an environment variable for a droplet is a little more complicated than for an app running on the app platform.

Follow these steps to set environment variables on a Linux droplet:

  1. SSH into your droplet. If you’re not sure how to do that, see here
  2. Once connected, run the following command to set your environment variable:
export YOUR_VARIABLE_KEY=<your-variable-value>

App platform environment variables

To set environment variables for an app running on Digital Ocean’s app platform, follow these steps:

  1. Login to the Digital Ocean portal
  2. Open your app
  3. Click the “Settings” tab
  4. Scroll down until you see “App-Level Environment Variables”
  5. Click “Edit” and add the environment variable key and value
  6. Click “Save”

Your environment variable will now be available for your app.