Voice of the DBA

Category: Blog

Get a PAT in Azure DevOps

I have a presentation recently on Continuous Integration Using Local Agents in Azure DevOps and one of the things I do in there is get a PAT for Azure DevOps to use in configuring an agent. This post shows how to do this, as I found this wasn’t obvious when I was searching out information.

Azure DevOps Organizations

In Azure DevOps, at the top level you have an organization. Here’s my way0utwest org.

In the lower left corner, there is this, which is somewhat hidden. As you can see, it’s next to the bottom projects in my org, just above my Windows bar.

If I click this, I have lots of settings. I have lots of different things. One would think this would be a place where I could create a PAT for my agent to connect with.

It’s not.

If I am setting up an Agent and need a PAT, I need to do to the upper right, under my user settings. This is the second from the right (as of Jan 2025) icon. If I click this, I see PATs.

Once I click Personal access tokens, I get to this screen. You can see my PATs and a “New” buton in the upper right. Click this to create a new token.

You get this screen. Apparently this token is only used to register the agent. I’ve usually granted this full access, but I haven’t dived too deep into what happens if I only limit rights. I’ll try that soon. As with any security issue, make sure you know the implications of settings.

Once you create this, you get a notice that you need to copy this now or lose it. There’s a handy copy button, so use it.

Summary

This is a quick post on creating tokens in Azure DevOps. As with any security change, make sure you know what the implications are for creating and using these.

January 27, 2025
The Local OLLAMA Gui
I ran a small ollama model in a container and have been doing some experiments. One of the things I wanted to do was get a GUI so I wasn’t always running docker to connect (with –it) or writing code to interact.

I saw a post somewhere that there is a webgui, so I decided to try it. This post shows the quick setup process.

This is part of a series of experiments with AI systems.

Run the Container

The command I used was this one:
```
docker run -d -p 3000:8080 --add-host=host.docker.internal:host-gateway -v ollama-webui:/app/backend/data --name ollama-webui --restart always ghcr.io/ollama-webui/ollama-webui:main
```
This downloaded and ran the container, which I forgot about until I saw it running in my Docker list.

Connecting and Getting Going

The command above runs on port 3000, so I went to port 3000 on my local host and saw this:

I clicked signup and added info, which isn’t really checked.

The first account is set at the admin and I see this screen:

I need to select a model to query, and when I click the drop down, I see the two I downloaded as part of my ollama container setup.

I picked mistral and started asking questions. I started with clicking the prompt on the screen, and I saw:

If you play with different models, give this a try as an easy way to run an AI on your local machine and see how well it can help you with anything you do.

Note, be wary, and make sure you read the disclaimer at the bottom (circled by me)
January 27, 2025
A New Word: Amoransia

amoransia – n. the melodramatic thrill of unrequited love; the longing to pine for someone you can never have, wallowing in devotion to some impossible person who could give your life meaning by their very absence.

Another young person’s word (in general), having amoranssia after watching some sort of media or seeing a picture, reading a story, and imaging how different your life would be with someone famous in it.

There was a point in the very early 90s, just after uni, when I found out Janet Jackson was single, and I was living in Southern CA. I thought what would happen if I happened to bump into her, start a conversation, and maybe a romance. It was a fleeting few days where I could have thought of possibilities, though certainly no amoransia as I wasn’t wallowing at all.

Just fantasizing.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

January 24, 2025
The Data API Builder Start and Add Extensions in VS Code

One of the things that I like about the Data API Builder (DAB) is that there is a lot of CLI work that can be done. However, lots of people don’t like these, so I’m glad there’s a series of extensions in the Visual Studio Code (VSCode) marketplace that you can use.

This post looks at the start and add extensions. Another post will look at the others.

Update: All these are now in one extension.

This is part of a series of posts on DAB that I’ve written. I also have articles at SQL Server Central about DAB.

Installing the Extensions

In VSCode, you can search for DAB in the extensions blade. You should see these, but there could be more by the time you read this.

I clicked install on these and they were added to my VS Code. Now let’s play with them. Each of them adds a right click menu item to the dab-config.json file.

DAB Start

The first one I tried was start. Since I had a valid dab-config.json in my file list, I could right click it. I see DAB Start as an option and select it.

This opens a new terminal. You need to be aware of this, as on the right side of your terminal, there is a new column and each terminal session is listed. The lower one is highlighted, opened by the DAB Start extension. You can see the output on the left, which is running.

I could then interact with my APIs in the browser. When I wanted to stop this, I could CTRL+C in the left terminal section, as in any, but I’d still have this terminal extension. The next time I clicked DAB Start, another new session would start.

Instead, I clicked the “Delete” trashcan next to the terminal on the left to stop this session and the DAB service.

DAB ADD

The ADD extension lets you add entites as well. If I right click and select DAB Add, I get another menu of types.

Once I select one, I see a list of objects from the database that I can view. In this case, the connection used in my DAB config file only sees three tables, so I can choose one of these.

If I hit Enter, I get a message that this was added.

If I look in the JSON for the config, I see that this is indeed added. This is another entity in my list, with the graphql and REST endpoints enabled.

Summary

This post looked at these simple extensions, which leverage VSCode to make working with the DAB easier. If you’re experimenting with DAB, try these extensions. I certainly find them easier ways to work with my config file than editing things directly or trying to copy/paste.

January 22, 2025