bcartifacturl-proxy

Get artifact URLs for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central

This extension utilizes the bcartifacturl-proxy to retrieve artifact URLs for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. In some specific scenarios it could be interesting to use this proxy instead of directly calling the Get-BCArtifactUrl method from the BcContainerHelper.

Benefits could be

• Reduce the duration of pipelines with the caching results of bcartifacturl-proxy
• Azure DevOps agent without BcContainerHelper installed

Read more on this on Get your BC artifact URLs without PowerShell

Example

- task: bcartifacturlproxy@1
  inputs:
    type: 'Sandbox'
    country: 'W1'
    select: 'Daily'

The task will set the pipeline variable $(BCARTIFACTURL_PROXY) with the result retrieved from the bcartifacturl-proxy instance.

Starting: Get-BCArtifactUrl
==============================================================================
Task         : bcartifacturl-proxy
Description  : Proxy for artifact URLs read by BcContainerHelper.
Version      : 1.1.0
Author       : Arthur van de Vondervoort
Help         : https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Arthurvdv.bcartifacturl-proxy
==============================================================================
*** Task Inputs:

name                           value
-----                          -----
instanceUri                    
type                           Sandbox
country                        W1
version                        
select                         Daily
storageAccount                 
sasToken                       
accept_insiderEula             false
cacheExpiration                


Invoke-WebRequest https://bca-url-proxy.azurewebsites.net/bca-url/sandbox/w1?DoNotRedirect=true&select=daily -UseBasicParsing
Response OK
*** Set Pipeline variable $(BCARTIFACTURL_PROXY) = 'https://bcartifacts.azureedge.net/sandbox/23.5.16502.17828/w1'
Finishing: Get-BCArtifactUrl

Pipeline variable

After having the pipeline variable $(BCARTIFACTURL_PROXY) set, this can then be easily passed to other tasks.

- task: PowerShell@2
  displayName: "Create BcContainer"
  env:
    ARTIFACTURL: $(BCARTIFACTURL_PROXY)
  inputs:
    targetType: "inline"
    script: |
      New-BcContainer -artifactUrl $env:ARTIFACTURL

- task: ALOpsAppCompiler@2
  displayName: "Compile Extension"
  inputs:
    alternativeartifacturl: "$(BCARTIFACTURL_PROXY)"

FAQ

What is the benefit of the bcartifacturl-proxy caching mechanism?

With the increasing amount of artifact URLs available, it can take up to 20-30 seconds for the Get-BCArtifactUrl to retrieve the result.

When a call comes in, it first checks a cache to find out if that artifact URLs has previously been requested. Those cache entries stay valid for one hour (sandbox artifacts) or one day (onprem artifacts). If a valid entry is found, the URL from the cache is returned.
https://tobiasfenster.io/get-your-bc-artifact-urls-without-powershell

When handeling translations files within the pipeline, which requires compiling the App to generate the translation (XLIFF) file and recompile again to include additional created translations files, this can reduce the duration of the pipeline up to 60 seconds.

Can I run my own instance of bcartifacturl-proxy?

Yes! Head over to https://github.com/tfenster/bcartifacturl-proxy and provide your instanceUri as a parameter to the task.
Leaving the parameter empty will default to 'https://bca-url-proxy.azurewebsites.net/bca-url/', a link shared for the community by Tobias Fenster.

Is an Azure DevOps agent running on Linux supported?

Currently only agents running on Windows are supported.

What will happen if the WebRequest fails?

In case the call to the instanceUri fails, the task will fallback to the Get-BCArtifactUrl method from the BcContainerHelper.

Adjusting input accept_insiderEula from 'true' to 'false'

In specific scenarios, the input parameter value accept_insiderEula will be adjusted from 'true' to 'false' to increase the likelihood of retrieving a cached result.

Invoke-WebRequest https://bca-url-proxy.azurewebsites.net/bca-url/sandbox/w1?select=latest&DoNotRedirect=true
Invoke-WebRequest https://bca-url-proxy.azurewebsites.net/bca-url/sandbox/w1?select=latest&DoNotRedirect=true&accept_insiderEula

Both requests are valid and will return the same artifact URL. However, the second request cannot benefit from the cache of the first request.
Conversely, automatic adjustment from 'false' to 'true' will not occur, as the insider EULA must always be explicitly accepted.

Increase Cache Expiration

By default, only cache entries that are less than 1 hour old are returned. To extend this duration, set the cacheExpiration parameter. For retrieving cached entries up to 24 hours old, set the value to 86400.