Building a .Net Core project with GitHub Actions

GitHub is one of the well-known version control tool which supports collaborative work among teams. Further, GitHub actions added as latest feature to GitHub to support automation of software delivery life cycle. This blog explains how to setup a build pipeline for .Net core project.

Pre- requisites:

• .Net Core Project pushed to GitHub Repository
• GitHub account

Let's get started.

Go to Actions tab in GitHub and select the existing workflow to setup a pipeline or setup work flow from the scratch. This blog explains how to setup a pipeline by utilizing .NET workflow. So, Select .NET workflow.

Configure Self-Hosted Runners in GitHub

GitHub action is set of tools which helps to automate software development lifecycle including continuous integration and deployment. As any of the automated workflow, GitHub use two type of  machines named as GitHub hosted runners which are hosted by GitHub and self-hosted runners which you can use your own machines to run GitHub actions. This blog explains how to setup a self-hosted runner in GitHub.

Why we need self-hosted runners?

• You can setup secured self-hosted agents when isolating your development environments to enhance the security by limiting the access from and to public internet.
• You can setup self-hosted agents when there are specific custom configurations required in runners

Let's get started.

Pre-requites: 

• Windows Server 2019 64-bit Virtual Machine
• GitHub account

Convert Azure DevOps YAML pipeline to GitHub Action Pipeline

GitHub is the widely used open-source code platform in modern tech world. Many companies started moving the repos and the pipelines to GitHub. If you are already using Azure DevOps YAML pipelines there is good documentation available here providing you with instructions to migrate your pipelines to GitHub Actions. But for you to get started quickly, the migrate Azure DevOps YAML pipelines to GitHub Actions YAML using a converter tool would come in handy. AS mentioned in the converter, the migration tool has approximately ~90% accuracy, depending on the YAML tasks.

Pre- requisites: Azure DevOps YAML pipeline

Resolving Windows Server 2019 Security Vulnerabilities Due to Out Dated TLS

TLS (Transport Layer Security) is used to sent data over internet securely as encrypted data to ensure hackers are unable to see what you transmitted. But, you need to select correct TLS version for your websites. If you use older versions of TLS, it is not secure to use it for sending data. Otherwise, your site would be exposed to cyber attacks such as POODLE,BEAST and many more. If you find your hosting server is vulnerable due to older TLS versions, you can disable it by modifying registry values. This blog explains how to disable TLS 1.0 via a PowerShell script.

This script would check for the available keys in  'HKLM:\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\SecurityProviders\SCHANNEL\Protocols' registry path and add new keys as TLS 1.0\Client

Add another key as  TLS 1.0\Server