Installing Alpine OS

Step 1

Download any alpine linux https://www.alpinelinux.org/downloads/ - i used alpine server (extended)

Step 2

Create A VM With min config in FreeNAS

Step 3

Boot into VM With VNC / Serial in FreeNAS

Step 4

Login as root -- No Password Required

Step5

Type setup-alpine

1. Select your keyboard layout. i used us and us-alt-intl
2. Enter Custom Hostname if required
3. Select The Network Port
4. Select IP Type (DHCP / Static)
5. Set ROOT Password
6. Set Timezone
7. Follow Any Other Instructions
8. for download mirror use type f to auto select
9. Install SSH Server if required
10. Select The Disk you want to install in eg (sda) and set it to sys to install it
11. Remove Install Media And Reboot

Thats it alpine OS is now installed in that VM.

Installing Docker In Alpine

Step 1

run apk add docker Docker package is available in the Community repository. Therefore, if apk add fails because of unjustifiable constraints error, you need to edit the /etc/apk/repositories file to add (or comment) a line. Community repository link: http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/latest-stable/community.

Step 2

run apk update && apk add docker again if repositories file edited

Step 3

• To start the Docker daemon at boot, run rc-update add docker boot
• Then to start the Docker daemon manually run service docker start

Installing Docker Compose

Step 1

run apk add py-pip it will install Python & PIP

Step 2

Since docker-compose version 1.24.0, you also need some dev dependencies: apk add python-dev libffi-dev openssl-dev gcc libc-dev make

Step 3

Then install docker-compose, run: pip install docker-compose

👀 Wrapping Up

Do not hesitate to share your feedback

I am on Twitter varunsridharan2. Give a follow!

Follow me on Github varunsridharan, Don't miss my amazing projects! 💯

🌎 Lets connect

• Github
• Twitter
• Instagram

Requirements

Please make sure you have installed MySQL & mysqldump program if you are running this script from a remote server.

if you are using it on the same server then no additional programs need to be installed.

Script

#!/bin/sh

# SQL Export File Name
FILE=db.`date +"%Y%m%d-%H%M%S"`.sql

# Database Server Host Name
DBSERVER="localhost"  

# Database Name
DATABASE=""

# Database User Name
USER=""

# Database User Password
PASS=""

# Backup Script
mkdir /root/backup/mysql/

cd /root/backup/mysql/ 

mysqldump --opt --user=${USER} --password=${PASS} --host=${DBSERVER} ${DATABASE} > ${FILE}

echo "SQL Backup ${FILE} was created:"

Feedback

I have been using this for years now and have never faced any issues to date and this script runs mostly via CRON in my server which triggers this script every day.

I have tested and actually used this script with a database that is over 1GB in-size too. never faced issues in exporting it.

Here is what you need to do in order to get the reverse proxy working on a cPanel server:

Prerequisites

1. cPanel Server
2. Apache Modules
   1. mod_proxy -- Required
   2. mod_proxy_http -- Required
   3. mod_proxy_connect -- Required
   4. mod_proxy_wstunnel -- Optional. enable if you want to use WebSockets

Lets Get Started

Setup Apache Modules

Login to WHM and navigate To Home » Software » EasyApache 4

Click Customize On Currently Installed Packages

Once it loaded click Apache Modules In the Left-side Menu

Select All REQUIRED Proxy Modules That Mentioned Above

Once you have selected the modules click Review in the left menu.

And click Provision To install & Setup the apache modules.

Creating A Reverse Proxy

Create a new file if not already exists in the below locations

STD -- Runs Without SSL

/usr/local/apache/conf/userdata/ssl/2_4/{user}/yourdomain.com/proxy_pass.conf

SSL -- Runs With SSL

/usr/local/apache/conf/userdata/std/2_4/{user}/yourdomain.com/proxy_pass.conf

(change '{user}' with the actual cPanel username')

Enable custom VHost file by running the below cmd

/scripts/ensure_vhost_includes --user={user}

After that you can then add the custom rules at the custom Vhost files which we created before.

Add below config to those VHosts file. which will forword all the requests for a domain to the given IP and also allows cPanel to handle SSL if it uses WEB ROOT to fetch SSL

###### DO NOT REMOVE BELOW LINE. IT USED TO AUTO RENEW SSL VIA CPANEL ######
ProxyPass "/.well-known"  !
###### DO NOT REMOVE ABOVE LINE. IT USED TO AUTO RENEW SSL VIA CPANEL ######

ProxyPass "/"  "http://10.0.3.2:80/"
ProxyPassReverse "/"  "http://10.0.3.2:80/"

Next step is to make sure that the written config is valid. run the below cmd

service httpd configtest

If you get 'Syntax OK' then run the below cmds to rebuild apache config & restart the Apache service

/scripts/rebuildhttpdconf 

service httpd restart

This pretty much it. All of this is required because you would lose all of your changes if you add them directly to your main httpd conf file.

I have also create a simple script which can handle creation of reverse proxy config in cPanel

Since i learned something new on how to convert .ppk into RSA i thought that i could share it with you to.

Lets Get Started

Requirements

1. Putty Generated Key
2. Putty Key Generator App For Windows
3. Linux Server (Ubuntu preferred)

Step 1

Load the Private Key File in Putty Key Generator and export it as OpenSSH Key

The exported key file should have text "BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY"

Step 2

Upload the file to a Linux server and run the below cmd which will convert the OpenSSH Key into RSA and update the same file

ssh-keygen -p -m PEM -f  {your-key-filename}

Step 3

Thats it. your putty Generated key file is now converted to RSA key.

2020-11-27T16-01-40.mp4
2020-11-27T16-06-18.mp4
2020-11-27T16-10-29.mp4
2020-11-27T16-14-05.mp4
2020-11-27T16-15-04.mp4

you can see the above file name is a actually a Time Stamp and it can be easy to identify the file when we don't have large no of files.

It will become hard when we need to look for a specific recording for a date & time.

So i decided to write a script which can be automated using cron to organize the files.

How it should be organized ?

I wanted this to be quickly accessible at any cost and the folder structure that i choose is below and i am sure this is the most common structure too

/{year}/{month}/{date}-{short-day-name}/{hour}-{minutes}-{seconds}.mp4

Example : /2020/01/01-Wed/13-04-00.mp4

Why i chose BASH ?

Mainly because i don't have to install any additional software for it & i wanted to try BASH with a real-world issue

Let's Create The Script

for the purpose of this blog post my recording path will be /mnt/cctv/cam1/

Create a file named organizer.sh and #!/bin/bash in the first line.

First we need to find all the files & directory inside the recording folder for which we can use * at the end of the path which will provide the full list of files & directory inside cam1 folder and this should be used with for loop so that we can loop over all the file names.

for entry in /mnt/cctv/cam1/*; do
    echo "${entry}"
done

Since it lists everything inside a directory we need to make sure that we are looping just for the filenames. so its better to check if its a directory or not. using ! -d $entry will check if the given path is not a directory

if [ ! -d $entry ]; then 
    echo "${entry} is not a directory"
fi

when you run the above code it will provide the full path of a file instead of just the file name which will look like below.

/mnt/cctv/cam1/2020-11-27T16-01-40.mp4
/mnt/cctv/cam1/2020-11-27T16-06-18.mp4
/mnt/cctv/cam1/2020-11-27T16-10-29.mp4
/mnt/cctv/cam1/2020-11-27T16-14-05.mp4
/mnt/cctv/cam1/2020-11-27T16-15-04.mp4

so we need to extract the file name from the path string using basename function in bash

FILE_BASE_NAME="$(basename "$entry")"

which set the value of FILE_BASE_NAME as 2020-11-27T16-01-40.mp4 instead of the full path.

Next step is to extract time stamp & file extension which can be done by split the string into 2 using tr function.

FILE_DATE_TIME_RAW=($(echo "$FILE_BASE_NAME" | tr "." "\n"))

Using $FILE_DATE_TIME_RAW[0] will provide the timestamp 2020-11-27T16-01-40

Using $FILE_DATE_TIME_RAW[1] will provide the file extension mp4

Next step is to split the timestamp into 2 since we just need to extract the date,month & year

FILE_DATE_TIME=($(echo ${FILE_DATE_TIME_RAW[0]} | tr "T" "\n"))

Using $FILE_DATE_TIME[0] will provide the date stamp 2020-11-27

Using $FILE_DATE_TIME[1] will provide the time stamp 16-01-40

Next step is the convert the date stamp string into machine readable string so that we can extract date,month & year

Since my storage server runs on FREEBSD i will be using

CUSTOM_FORMAT=$(echo $(date -jf "%Y-%m-%d" "${FILE_DATE}" +"%Y/%b/%d-%a" ))

if you are running on debian then the below code will work

CUSTOM_FORMAT=$(echo $(date +"%Y/%b/%d-%a" -d "${FILE_DATE} ${FILE_TIME}"))

I am not sure why the debian code did not work for me in freebsd i am new to bash and learning every day!

The final step is to make sure the output folder is created for which we need to use mkdir and then copy the file to new folder

FULL_SAVE_PATH="/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/${CUSTOM_FORMAT}/${FILE_DATE_TIME[1]}.${FILE_EXT}"
mkdir -p "/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/${CUSTOM_FORMAT}/"
mv "$entry" "$FULL_SAVE_PATH"

And here is the full script

#!/bin/bash

SAVE_TO_PATH="/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/"
DIR_TO_USE="/mnt/cctv/cam1/"

for entry in "${DIR_TO_USE}"/*; do
    if [ ! -d $entry ]; then 
        FILE_BASE_NAME="$(basename "$entry")"
        FILE_DATE_TIME_RAW=($(echo "$FILE_BASE_NAME" | tr "." "\n"))
        FILE_DATE_TIME=($(echo ${FILE_DATE_TIME_RAW[0]} | tr "T" "\n"))
        FILE_EXT="${FILE_DATE_TIME_RAW[1]}"
        FILE_TIME=$(echo "${FILE_DATE_TIME[1]}" | tr "-" ":" )
        FILE_DATE="${FILE_DATE_TIME[0]}"

        #CUSTOM_FORMAT=$(echo $(date +"%Y/%b/%d-%a" -d "${FILE_DATE} ${FILE_TIME}")) -- Worked In Ubuntu
        CUSTOM_FORMAT=$(echo $(date -jf "%Y-%m-%d" "${FILE_DATE}" +"%Y/%b/%d-%a" ))
        FULL_SAVE_PATH="${SAVE_TO_PATH}/${CUSTOM_FORMAT}/${FILE_DATE_TIME[1]}.${FILE_EXT}"

        echo "Local File : ${entry} => ${FULL_SAVE_PATH}"
        mkdir -p "${SAVE_TO_PATH}/${CUSTOM_FORMAT}/"
        mv "$entry" "$FULL_SAVE_PATH"
    fi
done

Thats it the script is done when you run it will auto organize the files

/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/2020/11/27-Fri/16-01-40.mp4
/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/2020/11/27-Fri/16-06-18.mp4
/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/2020/11/27-Fri/16-10-29.mp4
/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/2020/11/27-Fri/16-14-05.mp4
/mnt/cctv-output/cam1/2020/11/27-Fri/16-15-04.mp4

domQ is an absurdly small jQuery alternative for modern browsers (IE11+) that provides jQuery-style syntax for manipulating the DOM. Utilizing modern browser features to minimize the code base, developers can use the familiar chain-able methods at a fraction of the file size. 100% feature parity with jQuery isn't a goal, but domQ comes helpfully close, covering most day to day use cases.

Why 🤔

I was very bored with jQuery script and wanted to try something else 🙈.

Well as a web developer i wanted to move out from jQuery and use Vanilla JS. When i realized i had to write multiple lines of code for a single action thats when i decided to create a lightweight JavaScript library that can do most things that jQuery can.

domQ Uses Dizzle which is an alternate to jQuery's Sizzle Framework which is used for Customized CSS Selectors like :input, :hidden and Dizzle is bundled along with domQ. we both standalone & bundled versions.

Comparison

** domQ uses WebAnimation's API

domQ gives you a query selector, collection methods and some library methods. If you need more details about our API just check out jQuery's, while we don't implement everything that jQuery provides, everything what we do implement should be compatible with jQuery. domQ can be extended with custom methods, read how here

domQ is stable but we still lack documentation. !! if you need help you can contact me directly !

What is Private DNS?

The actual terminology for Private DNS is either DNS over TLS or DNS over HTTPS. TLS stands for Transport Layer Security and HTTPS stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure.

You can read more about DNS over TLS / DNS over HTTPS at cloudflare

What is the need to use Pi-Hole With DNS over TLS ?

Well based on my experience not all adds are getting blocked with using Pi-hole as a dns resolver for the hole network. and android some show catches the IP Address of the add's website when its not configured to run with Private DNS.

And another reason is when i am using with Mobile Internet i see a lots of adds. when using Private DNS its gets reduced.

I never used Raspberry Pi to run Pi-Hole in my local network. so i haven't tested the below cmd with Raspbian OS.

Step 1

Install Nginx using the below cmd

sudo apt-get  install nginx

Step 2

DNS over TLS requires SSL so we will be using Let’s Encrypt

First, add the repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot

since we are using Nginx we need to install Certbot Nginx Addon

sudo apt-get install -y certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Step 3

we need to generate a ssl certificate using Let’s Encrypt

Make sure to replace

1. <your-email> with your email ID
2. <your-domain> with the domain / subdomain you choose to use

sudo certbot  certonly --webroot -w "/var/www/html/" --preferred-challenges http -m "<your-email>" -d "<your-domain>" -n --agree-tos --no-eff-email

Step 4

Create a new directory named streams inside /etc/nginx/ and create a file dns-over-tls inside of streams directory with the below content

make sure to replace {dns_domain_name} with the actual domain name you decided to use

upstream dns-servers {
    server    127.0.0.1:53;
}
server {
  listen 853 ssl; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/{dns_domain_name}/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/{dns_domain_name}/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_protocols        TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
  ssl_ciphers          HIGH:!aNULL:!MD5;

  ssl_handshake_timeout    10s;
  ssl_session_cache        shared:SSL:20m;
  ssl_session_timeout      4h;
  proxy_pass dns-servers;
}

Step 5

Edit /etc/nginx/nginx.conf and add the below lines which tells nginx to auto include config files inside of streams directory

stream {
    include /etc/nginx/streams/*;
}

Step 6

Remove all the other server config which are located inside of /etc/nginx/sites-available/ AND /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

sudo rm -rf /etc/nginx/sites-available/*
sudo rm -rf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*
sudo service nginx start

Make sure to have TCP PORT 853 open now you can use the domain name in your android mobile in private dns setting.

I have also made a quick setup script which you can find @

if you need help in setting it up. you can contact me via Twitter @varunsridharan2 i will do my best.

Pi-Hole is a DNS sinkhole which protects your devices from loading unwanted contents without having to install any software in your devices.

Pi-Hole is an open-source software which helps ensure you are the sole person in control of your privacy

How it works?

Pi-hole functions as an internal, private DNS server for your network. For many home users, this service is already running on your router, but your router doesn’t know where advertisements are — but Pi-hole does. Pi-hole will intercept any queries for known ad-serving domains and deny them access, so ads won’t be downloaded.

This means websites will load a lot faster, but without advertisements. Pi-Hole also caches these queries, so responsiveness to commonly visited websites is improved. The main advantage with Pi-Hole is

1. It can run on almost any hardware
2. Lightweight; requires just 2GB disk space & 512MB Ram
3. Blocks Ads using the block list which is updated frequently
4. Blocks unwanted sites and malware
5. Blocks Telemetry Data
6. Saves Your Internet bandwidth

How to install?

Primarily Pi-Hole was designed for RaspberryPi. Soon it was extended to almost every Linux distribution. It can be deployed on any cloud service provider like Digitalocean, Vultr, etc.

I am using a Digitalocean Droplet to demonstrate how to install it since I don't have any free hardware left to spare at home

Prerequisites

1. 2GB Disk Space (4GB preferred)
2. 512MB RAM
3. 1 Static IP

Installation

Running the below command will get you started with the installation

curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash

The command will download the install script and perform some checks before installation.

Step 1

Just press OK

Step 2

Just press OK Again

Step 3

In this step, it says that Pi-Hole is a server and it requires a STATIC IP address to work properly

Step 4

if you have multiple Ethernet ports and wanted to use a port other than default then you have to select your port. but for most people, it selects the default port

since I am running on Digitalocean its shows 2 usable ports. and I am going to stick with the default port which is eth0 as its directly connected to the internet and can be accessed from anywhere

Step 4

Here's where you select/enter your Upstream DNS provider.

Upstream DNS means pi-hole forwards requests to the configured provider to fetch the IP-Address if the request itself not been blocked by Pi-Hole

I selected Cloudflare as the provider because its faster & secure

Step 5

By default Pi-Hole has a built-in list of domains that should be blocked at all times. I prefer to just stick with the defaults.

Just press OK

Step 6

In this step, you can configure which protocol pi-hole can block ads. just press ok it's better to have the defaults.

Step 7

It shows the IP Address & Gateway of the connected network. make sure to note down the IP address

Step 8

Just Press ok but make sure to assign a static IP in the router level if you are installing it in your local network. that why the same IP will not be assigned to any other devices.

Step 9

Asks if you need an admin interface running on a web server. It's better to have. As it makes it easy to configure Pi-Hole.

Step 10

By default Pi-Hole will provide with Lighttpd which is great. if you have any other web server running then you can choose no as I don't have any. I am selecting Yes

Step 11

Select yes if you want to see which device quires which website. basically, logs every request made by a device. I prefer to select yes because it provides a list and I can quickly check and block any wanted

Step 12 -- Final Step

This is to customize how the logs should be saved. just press ok and want for a few minutes to get this installed

Finished

This is the final screen which shows some important information. such as

1. IP Address
2. Admin Password
3. Admin Page URL

Make sure write them down

Once you are logged into the admin panel you will see something like below

You can find more information about setting up Pi-hole on the GitHub repository.

If you need support with using Pi-hole or want to chat with the Pi-hole community, you can visit their forum here.

Honest Feedback

In my family, I am the only person who can actually differentiate between genuine content/advertisement but other members of my family including my parents can't able to understand which is an advertisement. and in mobile everything is cluttered with adds every app that you installed has advertisement which is irrelevant & inappropriate.

That's when I decided to use Pi-Hole 2 years ago. and got to say it really made a big difference. it did the best to block all irrelevant & inappropriate advertisement in the whole local network. and it saved me almost 20% of my bandwidth usage.

I urge people to give it a try and see the actual difference.

if you need help in setting it up. you can contact me via Twitter @varunsridharan2 i will do my best.

The above has been the narrative that I have stuck to all-along. However, there is more to my story, which I haven't revealed before. This blog post is an open narrative of my life, detailing the various choices I have made, which ended up wreaking havoc with my physical health and mental well-being.

I learnt the hard way, the need for, and importance of, a healthy work-life balance, along with consistent physical activity. A lack of this balance bordered on an unhealthy obsession with work, affecting both physical health and mental well-being. This in-turn, ironically, affected the efficiency and productivity of work itself. Looking back, I see where I have gone wrong, but I was too young to realize the path I was heading on at the time, which I regret in hindsight.

About Me

My first exposure to a computer was at the age of 3. I spent most of my waking time in front of the computer, trying to disassemble it, to learn about its architecture and inner workings. Computers quickly became my passion, and quite honestly an obsession, to the point that I stopped going out to play with friends. This was the beginning of my soon-to-become-permanent sedentary and inactive lifestyle.

I kept thinking about computers and technology all the time, even at school. Instead of being in the classroom studying, I used to go to the computer lab and help the lab engineer. The headmaster at school called my parents and complained about my unhealthy obsession with computers and the fact that I was losing focus and interest in academics. My parents, concerned about my obsession, took me to a Psychologist. He heard me out, and tried to talk to me about the importance of academics, but I was absolutely stubborn about quitting academics and focusing full-time on computers.

Finally, after much persuasion and discussion, my parents realized that I was no longer inclined towards mainstream academics. They allowed me to discontinue my academics in grade 7, and start working on computers full-time. It seemed like a great victory for me, but it so ended up that I started sitting on the computer for 20-22 hours a day, getting up only to eat or sleep. This compounded an already sedentary lifestyle, and led to a host of other ailments.

My health: a rocky beginning and unending concerns

I had developed an ear infection at a very early age, which went unnoticed until I was about 14 years old. Each time the infection flared up, we went to a doctor who prescribed medication and said it would go away in a few days. Over the years we saw several doctors, each of whom followed the same course of action.

The infection advanced with time and was accompanied with heavy dizziness, which made it hard for me to sit or stand. At this point, my parents and I went to see a specialist, who told me that my left ear was heavily infected and would need immediate surgery. A few months after, the right ear also needed to be operated on due to bone damage from the infection, and needed a steel plate. I suffered with dizziness for a long time after the surgery too.

All this affected my hearing, reducing my auditory capacity to 55% in my left ear and 75% in my right. Till date, I can only hear high-decibel noises only, and have trouble hearing speech and other sounds at low-decibels.

After about a year, I got a bit of a skin rash. Initially it subsided with some medication, but then it became more severe and spread throughout the body. I visited a number of skin specialists who ran various tests ranging from blood count to cancer, but none provided a definite answer to the condition. The infection had spread all over the body and was deeply agonizing making it hard to sit, stand or sleep. Finally, after over two months and INR 60,000 (~1000USD) in tests, the issue had become evident. The over-prescription of steroid medication for the initial skin rash is what triggered this skin condition, but it was in great deal caused due to constant stress. It took a further 2 years and 6 months to partly recover from the damage, which was excruciatingly painful and depressing. Stress can be greatly damaging!

Further, due to my incorrect pattern of brushing and improper oral hygiene, I ended up with 8 cavities. I have had to get eight of my teeth removed and replaced with artificial teeth.

To add on to things, my sedentary life and lack of physical activity reduced my outdoor exposure to the sun, resulting in a vitamin D deficiency. It also caused me to become extremely obsese. At the peak, I weighed about 165 kilograms. After some physical activity and lifestyle change, I reduced my weight to 140 kilograms. This seemed like a great win, and I started neglecting physical activity and started sitting in front of the computer again. :(

My biggest and most challenging health concern continues to be my obesity, due to my lack of interest in a disciplined regimen of physical activity.

Thankfully though, I am happy that as on date I have a working mind and body :)

Lessons learnt

I have learnt that academics or no academics, life is meant to be enjoyed and lived with interest, passion and love. We must not forget that our body and mind play the key role in order to achieve great things in life and to experience life as it is meant to be. We must never take them for granted.

Nothing must get in the way of a healthy and disciplined lifestyle with equal balance of work and life. Make time for a hobby such as reading or music. Family time is also important. Spend time with your parents, spouse, siblings and children. These activities help calm the mind and keep stress levels in control. For me, my biggest stress buster has been my dog, Sofie :)

Limit working hours to no more than 10-12 hours a day. Even while working, get up every hour and stretch the body. Focus the eyes away from the screen once at least every 15 minutes to avoid fatigue and dryness. No matter how long you work, there is always work to be done! It is always better to work in a systematic and disciplined manner.

Physical activity and fitness is absolutely essential for maintaining good health and a sharp mind. Most people lose interest in working out, because it is too boring to do alone. I would recommend a sport involving friends, so it is fun, but also meets the requirement for physical activity. It also helps gain some exposure to the sun, meeting the Vitamin D quota! ;)

Sleep is extremely important. Make sure to get at least 6-7 hours of good sleep to help the body and mind rejuvenate and refresh.

I urge those reading my blog to learn from the mistakes I have made, and the pain I have had to experience. Try and alter your choices, so you can live a life of inspiration, love, contentment and fulfillment. You can still work on whatever it is that you find passionate, but you can do it without having to compromise due to health limitations.

Your repository must only include the metadata file, code, and files necessary for the action.

Creating a single repository for the action allows you tag, release, and package the code in a single unit.

GitHub also uses the action's metadata on your GitHub Marketplace page.

Prerequisites

Actions are published to GitHub Marketplace immediately without review, as long as they meet the below requirements:

1. The action must be in a public repository.
2. Each repository must contain a single action.
3. The action's metadata file (action.yml or action.yaml) must be in the root directory of the repository.
4. The name in the action's metadata file must be unique.
   1. The name cannot match an existing action name on GitHub Marketplace.
   2. The name cannot match a user or organization on GitHub, unless the user or organization owner is publishing the action.
   3. The name cannot match an existing GitHub Marketplace category.
   4. GitHub reserves the names of GitHub features.

Publishing and removing an action

You can add the action you created to the GitHub Marketplace by tagging it as a new release and publishing it, or you can remove it. Github’s documentation for publishing and removing an action is illustrative and straightforward. You can see the steps in the Publishing an action section.

Prerequisites

1. You will need to have a basic understanding of Docker to start with, along with GitHub Actions environment variables and the Docker container filesystem. For better understanding, you can see the sections on Using environment variables and Virtual environments for GitHub".
2. Create a new repository on Github. For the purposes of this blog, we will be working with a repository titled simple-docker-action
3. Clone the above repository to your local computer
4. Once cloned, using terminal, change directory to the repository as below: cd simple-docker-action

Creating the action.yml file

Create a new file action.yml in the simple-docker-action directory with the following example code:

name: 'Simple Docker Action'

description: 'Basic Docker Action Which uses AlpineOS'

inputs:
  who-to-greet:
    description: 'Who to greet'
    required: true
    default: 'World'

outputs:
  time:
    description: 'The time we greeted you'

runs:
  using: "docker"
  image: "Dockerfile"
  args:
    - ${{ inputs.who-to-greet }}

This metadata defines one who-to-greet input and one time output parameter. To pass inputs to the Docker container, you must declare the input using inputs and pass the input in the args keyword.

GitHub will build an image from your Dockerfile, and run commands in a new container using this image.

Creating entrypoint.sh

You can choose any base Docker image and, therefore, any language for your action. The following shell script example uses the who-to-greet input variable to print "Hello [who-to-greet]" in the log file.

Next, the script gets the current time and sets it as an output variable that actions running later in a job can use. In order for GitHub to recognize output variables, you must use a workflow command in a specific syntax: echo "::set-output name=<output name>::<value>". For more information, see Workflow commands for GitHub Actions.

The entry point file mentioned in the Dockerfile under the ENTRYPOINT must be created in the repository. In this example, we have taken the entry point file as entrypoint.sh. Hence we will create a file called entrypoint.sh in the repository, and add the following code:

#!/bin/sh

# $1 will provide the value of who-to-greet
echo "Hello $1"

time=$(date)

echo "::set-output name=time::$time"

If entrypoint.sh executes without any errors, the action's status is set to success. You can also explicitly set exit codes in your action's code to provide an action's status. For more information, see Setting exit codes for actions

Creating Dockerfile

In the repository, create a file called Dockerfile

Dockerfile should be named exactly as Dockerfile with capital D, and no file extension.

FROM

The first instruction in the Dockerfile must be FROM, which selects a Docker base image. see the FROM reference in the Docker documentation

for the sake of this blog we will be using Alpine Linux as base image.

FROM alpine:latest

COPY

Next step is to copy entrypoint.sh before we can execute it The COPY instruction copies new files or directories from <src> and adds them to the filesystem of the container at the path <dest>.

Copies entrypoint.sh file from your action repository to the filesystem path / of the container

COPY entrypoint.sh /entrypoint.sh

RUN

The RUN instruction will execute any commands in a new layer on top of the current image and commit the results. The resulting committed image will be used for the next step in the Dockerfile.

We need make entrypoint.sh executable since we copied the file to the runner.

RUN chmod +x /entrypoint.sh

ENTRYPOINT

An ENTRYPOINT allows you to configure a container that will run as an executable.

Code file to execute when the docker container starts up (entrypoint.sh)

ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]

The final Dockerfile would look like below

FROM alpine:latest
COPY entrypoint.sh /entrypoint.sh
RUN chmod +x /entrypoint.sh
ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint.sh"]

Testing out the action in a workflow

Before testing the code, make sure to commit the action.yml, entrypoint.sh and Dockerfile files and push to Github.

The workflow file for this action would look as below:

name: "Docker Simple"

on: [push]

jobs:
  docker_simple:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: "A Simple Docker Action"
    steps:
      - name: "Greet & Output Time"
        id: hello
        uses: learn-with-varunsridharan/github-action/docker-action@main
        with:
          who-to-greet: 'Mona the Octocat'

      - name: "Get the output time"
        run: echo "The time was ${{ steps.hello.outputs.time }}"

Output

When you run the above action with the exact code you should get output something like below

You can download / clone the source code from below Github Repository

We will learn about Publishing Github Actions To Github Marketplace in the next blog

Do stay tuned.

In this post we will learn how to create github action which interacts with Github API using actions/core AND actions/github npm packages

If you haven't yet read the previous blog post. please stop here. first read it and come back.

Prerequisites

1. Download and install Node.js 12.x or newer, which includes npm
2. Create a new repository on GitHub. For the purposes of this blog, we will be working with a repository titled githubapi-nodejs-action
3. Clone the above repository to your local computer
4. Once cloned, using terminal, change directory to the repository as below: cd githubapi-nodejs-action
5. From your terminal, initialize the directory with a package.json file using: npm init -y
6. @actions/core NPM Package

Creating the Action Metadata file

Create a new file action.yml in the githubapi-nodejs-action directory with the following example code:

name: 'NodeJS Action With Github API'

description: 'use of the `@actions/core` & `@actions/github` package, which is advanced action demo'

runs:
  using: 'node12'
  main: 'dist/index.js'

Writing Action's Javascript Code

Since we are interacting with the Github REST API, we first need to import the @actions/github library into the core variable, since the client for the REST API is included in the Octokit

const github = require( '@actions/github' );

Since we are interacting with the API, we need an authentication token, which should be provided by the user in the workflow YML file. The token will be parsed to the REST API client, and the instance will be stored in a variable

if( typeof process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN === 'undefined' ) {    
throw new Error( 'GITHUB_TOKEN ENV Variable Is Required' ); 
}
const octokit = github.getOctokit( process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN );

Information such as event name, payload and other repository information will be available through github.context, which we will save in the context variable

const context = github.context;

Now comes the actual action which creates a new issue in the current repository. Using the repository information in the context variable, we will add the issue to the repository.

await octokit.issues.create( {
    ...context.repo,
    title: `New issue! | Action Runner ID #${process.env.GITHUB_RUN_NUMBER}`,
    body: `Hello There,
    Current Time Is : ${time}
    `
} );

The complete code would look as below:

const core   = require( '@actions/core' );
const github = require( '@actions/github' );

async function run() {
    try {
        if( typeof process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN === 'undefined' ) {
            throw new Error( 'GITHUB_TOKEN ENV Variable Is Required' );
        }

        const octokit = github.getOctokit( process.env.GITHUB_TOKEN );
        const context = github.context;
        const time    = ( new Date() ).toTimeString();

await octokit.issues.create( {
    ...context.repo,
    title: `New issue! | Action Runner ID #${process.env.GITHUB_RUN_NUMBER}`,
    body: `Hello There,
    Current Time Is : ${time}
    `
} );

    } catch( error ) {
        core.setFailed( error.message );
    }
}

run();

Please note that Github does not check or install any dependencies. The action code you create must be full packaged containing all dependencies within.

To package your Github action, please install the vercel/ncc NPM package, which is a simple CLI for compiling a Node.js module into a single file, together with all its dependencies, gcc-style.

After installing the vercel/ncc package, you must include a prepare statement in your package.json, which ensures that the compiler runs automatically each time you update the dependencies. Make sure to run npm run prepare before pushing to the repository each time.

"scripts": {
    "prepare": "ncc build ./src/index.js -o dist --source-map --license licenses.txt"
},

The workflow file for this action, would look like the below:

name: "NodeJS Action With Github API"

on: [push]

jobs:
  nodejs_action_with_github_api:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: "A Advanced Node JS Action"
    steps:
      - name: "Create Issue With Current Time"
        uses: learn-with-varunsridharan/github-action/githubapi-nodejs-action@main
        env:
          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Output

When you run the above action with the exact code you should get output something like below

Workflow Output

Example Issue

You can download / clone the source code from below Github Repository

To ensure your JavaScript actions are compatible with all GitHub-hosted runners ( Ubuntu, Windows, & macOS ), the packaged JavaScript code should be in pure JavaScript and not rely on other binaries. If it does rely on binaries, you should pack them alongside the code.

Toolkit Helper Packages

GitHub provides a ready-available library of toolkit packages for Node.js which can be used to build the JavaScript actions. We will look at some of them briefly as below:

✔️ @actions/core

This package provides a set of functions for handling inputs, outputs, results, logging, secrets and variables. Run npm install @actions/core to install this package.

🏃 @actions/exec

This package provides a function to execute commands in shell. Run npm install @actions/exec to install this package.

🍨 @actions/glob

This package provides a function to search for files matching glob patterns. Run npm install @actions/glob to install this package.

✏️ @actions/io

This package provides a function to handle disk i/o functions like cp, mv, rmRF, find etc.. Run npm install @actions/io to install this package.

@actions/github

This package provides a set of functions to interact with Github’s REST API. Run npm install @actions/github to install this package.

Please note that Github does not check or install any dependencies. The action code you create must be full packaged containing all dependencies within.

To package your Github action, please install the vercel/ncc NPM package, which is a simple CLI for compiling a Node.js module into a single file, together with all its dependencies, gcc-style.

After installing the vercel/ncc package, you must include a prepare statement in your package.json, which ensures that the compiler runs automatically each time you update the dependencies. Make sure to run npm run prepare before pushing to the repository each time.

"scripts": {
    "prepare": "ncc build ./src/index.js -o dist --source-map --license licenses.txt"
},

Prerequisites

1. Download and install Node.js 12.x or newer, which includes npm
2. Create a new repository on GitHub. For the purposes of this blog, we will be working with a repository titled simple-nodejs-action
3. Clone the above repository to your local computer
4. Once cloned, using terminal, change directory to the repository as below: cd simple-nodejs-action
5. From your terminal, initialize the directory with a package.json file using: npm init -y
6. @actions/core NPM Package

Simple Github Action

We will be creating a Github action which will greet user and sets a output variable containing current timestamp.

Creating the Action Metadata file

Create a new file action.yml in the simple-nodejs-action directory with the following example code:

name: 'NodeJS Simple Action'

description: 'use of the `@actions/core` package, which is a simple action'

inputs:
  who-to-greet:  # id of input
    description: 'Who to greet'
    required: true
    default: 'World'

outputs:
  time: # id of output
    description: 'The time we greeted you'

runs:
  using: 'node12'
  main: 'dist/index.js'

Let us analyze the contents of the action.yml file, for better understanding:

The runs sections tells the runner that the action runs using node12, and that the the main index.js file is the one that contains the actual code for the action.

The inputs are the parameters passed to the action as input, and the required tells the runner that inputs are required. The output contains the description of the output parameter.

Writing Action's Javascript Code

The first step in writing a simple action would be to install & import the @actions/core NPM library.

Run npm install @action/core to install and import it in the code like below

const core = require( '@actions/core' );

Next, you need to get the input parameters from the user. In this example, we will consider a parameter named who-to-greet. You would do this as below:

const nameToGreet = core.getInput( 'who-to-greet' );

Next, print the input parameters, in our case nameToGreet, to the Github action runner as below:

core.info( `Hello ${nameToGreet}!` );

Next, set the output parameters. In this case, we are taking the current time as the output. This is done as below:

core.setOutput( "time", time );

The final code would be as shown below:

// Imports @actions/core npm library into core variable
const core = require( '@actions/core' );

try {
    // Get The Input Value of `who-to-greet`
    const nameToGreet = core.getInput( 'who-to-greet' );

    // Prints The Value of nameToGreet in Github Action
    core.info( `Hello ${nameToGreet}!` );

    // Fetchs The Current Time
    const time = ( new Date() ).toTimeString();

    // Sets The Time As Output
    core.setOutput( "time", time );
} catch( error ) {
    core.setFailed( error.message );
}

As soon as you finish the code, you must build the package and push to Github. Make sure to follow the steps mentioned at the end of the Toolkit Helper Packages section.

The workflow file for this action, would look like the below:

name: "NodeJS Simple"

on: [push]

jobs:
  nodejs_simple:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: "A Simple Node JS Action"
    steps:
      - name: "Greet & Output Time"
        id: hello
        uses: learn-with-varunsridharan/github-action/nodejs-simple@main
        with:
          who-to-greet: 'Mona the Octocat'

      - name: "Get the output time"
        run: echo "The time was ${{ steps.hello.outputs.time }}"

Output

When you run the above action with the exact code you should get output something like below

You can download / clone the source code from below Github Repository

We will learn about Creating Github Action With Github REST-API Using Javascript in the next blog

Do stay tuned.

Action metadata files use the YAML syntax, identified by a .yml or .yaml extension. The action metadata file is named action.yml. If you're new to YAML, you can read more here.

Action Metadata

The action.yml relies on seven metas, some of which are required, and others optional, as shown below:

* Required Field

The inputs, outputs, runs and branding meta contains multiple parameters each, and hence requires an exploration in-depth, which we will learn below.

inputs

Input parameters allow you to specify data that the action expects to use during runtime. These are stored as environment variables. It is recommended to use lowercase input ids (Uppercase variables are automatically converted to lowercase).

There are four input parameters that an action permits, as shown below:

* Required Field

outputs

Output parameters allow you to declare data that an action produces as output. For actions that run in succession, the output data of one action can in turn be used as input for the next action.

There are two output parameters that an action permits, as shown below:

* Required Field

runs

Configures the path to the action's code and the application used to execute the code. The runs meta contains a separate set of parameters which is environment-specific. These are discussed environment-wise as below:

JavaScript Action

The runs meta for a JavaScript action, contains six parameters as detailed below:

* Required Field

Docker Action

The runs meta for a Docker actions, contains seven parameters as detailed below:

* Required Field

branding

The branding meta contains two parameters, both of which are required if you are publishing to a marketplace, otherwise are optional. They are as below:

* Required Field

haya14busa has created a GitHub Actions Branding Cheat sheet which you can use to find icon & color for your GitHub action

We will learn about Creating Github Actions Using Javascript in the next blog

Do stay tuned.

Much of software development involves repetitive tasks, which consumes a major chunk of time. This time can be more efficiently used by the developers in actually producing code, instead of on these repetitive tasks, which can easily be automated by GitHub actions.

Further, repetitive tasks tend to become mundane, and can easily cause a step or two to be missed when routinely performing the same tasks. Github actions help automate these tasks and ensure that every step is run precisely each time.

When multiple developers or development teams are working on a large project, CI/CD becomes the core requirement, which allows developers to commit code without affecting the work of others in the team. GitHub actions with its built-in CI/CD fit the bill perfectly.

How Github actions can be useful?

The possibilities for GitHub actions are endless. You can make use of useful actions already created by the community, or create customized actions that suit your requirements as needed by your repository.

Generally, Github actions can be useful for four primary groups of tasks:

1. Code Scanning

Each time a file is committed to the repository, the workflow can be used to trigger an action to scan the code for ‘malicious’ or ‘erroneous’ content. If such content is detected, the developer can be notified via email. Further, the action can also be used to check for sensitive content accidentally left in the file during development, such as passwords or API tokens.

This helps in consistently keeping the code clean, the developer safe from accidentally publishing sensitive content, as well as the users safe from downloading and using malicious or erroneous code.

2. Coding Standards

An action can be used to scan the committed file and ensure that all the relevant coding standards have been followed by the developer. Accordingly, the developer can be notified via email regarding notices, warnings, and breaches in the standards, for necessary rectification.

This helps make sure the content committed is always up to coding standards and can easily be followed by fellow developers, ensuring ease of maintenance and ongoing development.

3. Building, Publishing, and Deploying Code

Most software packages begin as source files written by developers in human-readable code and are required to be compiled into a machine-readable installation package. Github action can be used to automatically build the code from source files as needed, which would then be suitable for publishing or deployment.

Once the code is built, the action can go further and either publish the package (eg: WordPress Plugins) or deploy the same to a live server. This automation eliminates a plethora of possible errors that can be committed by the developer at each stage.

4. Miscellaneous

Github actions can also be used to perform routine tasks which commonly plague software developers such as sending email to users when a new version is launched, auto-updating the changelog, etc.

The creation of actions in Github is only limited by the extent of your customization and the requirement of your repository. Actions can be integrated with GitHub's APIs and any publicly available third-party API.

Ways to create Github actions

Github actions can be created in three environments, depending on the Operating system:

Docker Container

Actions using the Docker container can only execute on the Linux OS. You must use a Linux OS and have Docker installed to run Docker container actions. The Docker container allows you to use specific versions of an OS, dependencies, tools, and code. It is more consistent and reliable because the consumer of the action need not worry about the tools or dependencies.

Do keep in mind though, that because of the latency to build and retrieve the container, Docker container actions are slower than JavaScript actions.

JavaScript actions

This simplifies the action code and executes faster than a Docker container action. To ensure compatibility with GitHub-hosted runners (Ubuntu, Windows, and macOS), JS actions must be written in pure JavaScript and not rely on other binaries. If you're developing a Node.js project, the GitHub Actions Toolkit provides packages that you can use in your project to speed up development.

Composite run steps actions

This allows you to combine multiple workflow run steps within one action. For example, you can use this feature to bundle together multiple run commands into an action, and then have a workflow that executes the bundled commands a single step using that action. To see an example, check out the documentation.

I will discuss the steps for creating actions in the Docker container and Javascript environments in this blog series.

We will learn about action.yml metadata file,

in the next blog titled Creating and working with action.yml

Do stay tuned.

Using Github Actions, you can use events that happen within repositories to trigger a workflow file to perform specified actions.

A simple illustration would work something like this. Let us say you have a repository containing a WordPress Plugin you have built, and would like to trigger certain actions (eg: post a comment to the issue with predefined FAQs and troubleshooting tips) when an issue is opened, deleted or each time an issue has a new comment.

Understanding the terms Event, Workflow and Action

What do the above terms mean, and which are they in our illustration?

EVENT

‘Issue opened’, ‘issue deleted’, and ‘issue comment’ are called events. They trigger the action.

ACTION

An ‘action’ is the end task that runs when an ‘event’ happens. An action can be something existing that is created by the community or custom-created by you for your repository’s specific requirements. In our example ‘post comment with FAQs and troubleshooting’ is one action. Another could be ‘send an email notification to yourself’.

WORKFLOW

The ‘workflow’ is the YML file located inside the workflows folder which actually links the ‘event’ to the ‘action’. The workflow contains the event (eg: issue opened) and specifies what action should run (eg: post comment with FAQs and troubleshooting).

Setting up the Environment

These are the steps you would follow, to set up the workflow environment for a repository:

1. Creating the folder structure inside your repository.
2. Creating a workflow file to listen for an event happening (eg: new issue)
3. Specifying the actual action (eg: post FAQ comment) that powers the workflow

Since this blog article is specifically about Github's actions, I will skip going into the details of items 1 and 2 above, and focus on the actual action itself.

If you would like to know about steps 1 and 2, you can learn them from How to setup GitHub Actions on your Github repository. by Graham Vasquez

We will learn about specifying the actual action, which is the focus of this blog series, in the next blog titled The why, how and creation of Github actions.

Do stay tuned.

In this post, we are going to learn how we can style our README.md

Text Align

Using align="left" attribute text can be aligned easily and it works with all the tags that markdown supports.

## Text Align - <p>
<p align="center">This is center aligned!</p>
<p align="left">Left aligned</p>
<p align="right">Right aligned</p>


## Text Align - <div>
<div align="center">This is center aligned!</div>
<div align="left">Left aligned</div>
<div align="right">Right aligned</div>

Github Output

Image Align

## Left Align
<p ><img align="left" width="200" src="https://via.placeholder.com/400x200"></p>

<br/><br/><br/><br/>

## Right Align
<p ><img align="right" width="200" src="https://via.placeholder.com/400x200"></p>

<br/><br/><br/><br/>

## Center Align
<p align="center" ><img width="200" src="https://via.placeholder.com/400x200"></p>

Github Output

List With indentation

# List With indentation

<dl>
  <dt>List Item 1</dt>
  <dd>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris pharetra, ante vitae gravida rhoncus, nunc nulla posuere felis</dd>
  <dt>List Item 2</dt>
  <dd>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris pharetra, ante vitae gravida rhoncus, nunc nulla posuere felis</dd>
</dl>


# Nested List With indentation
<dl>
  <dt>List Item 1</dt>
  <dd>
    Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
    <dl>
      <dt>Nested List Item 1</dt>
      <dd>
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet
        <dl>
          <dt>Nested List Item 2</dt>
          <dd>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet</dd>
        </dl>  
      </dd>
    </dl>
  </dd>
</dl>

Github Output

Dropdown

To Make Markdown work inside details tag make sure to leave the empty line after the summary tag

Dropdown in markdown supports all the basic features such as Text, Image, Table, List, .etc inside. i am just show some of it. not all.

Text

<details>
  <summary>Dropdown With Text</summary>
  Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Mauris pharetra, ante vitae gravida rhoncus, nunc nulla posuere felis, 
  id rhoncus ante tellus malesuada libero. Aliquam fermentum massa eget sodales aliquet.
  Morbi vitae velit tincidunt lorem fringilla lacinia non vitae leo. Fusce congue odio eget tellus finibus vulputate. 
</details>

Github Output

Image

<details>
  <summary>Dropdown With Image</summary>

  ![Image Here](https://via.placeholder.com/600x200)  
</details>

Github Output

Table

<details>
  <summary>Dropdown With Table</summary>

  | First Header | Second Header |
  | --- | --- |
  | Content from cell 1 | Content from cell 2 |
  | Content in the first column | Content in the second column |

</details>

Github Output

You can check out the live demo @ this repository