Goals

  • Reformat and reconfigure my primary development machine
    • Gives a fresh start to the challenge and for the new year
  • Update dev-bootstrap to handle a few things I’ve been using on my dev machine since I last updated it:
    • Setup the Windows OpenSSH agent, add my homelab SSH key to it, and share it with WSL
    • Use the Git Credential Manager in WSL
    • Update Git in WSL to a newer version.
      • Ubuntu still has a fairly old version in the default repository which has some security vulnerabilities.
  • Start a blog(?)

Findings/Results

  • After reformatting my machine and re-installing Windows I hit a couple of snags with installing my software with my dev-bootstrap process:
    • Maven updated to a new version (3.8.7) and the version I was attempting to download was no longer available through the CDN. I switched this to use the Maven archive URL for installation instead. After testing I went ahead and updated to the new version.
    • WSL2 on Windows 10 was taking a very long time to initialize and run. I found I needed to add resources to the machine through the .wslconfig on my machine so I templated it so I could configure those in with chezmoi.
      • :warning: The settings I support in chezmoi should be documented in my dotfiles README at some point
  • I updated Git to a more recent release in WSL and found that I needed a templating solution for managing the safe Git directories since those variations were making the file difficult to manage in chezmoi.
  • I added support for using the Windows Git Credential Manager when I’m working in WSL. This allows me to not have to setup my Git credentials more than when I first log into the GitHub Desktop app the first time.
  • A while back I followed Stuart Leeks’ guide on using the Windows OpenSSH Agent to manage SSH keys and share them with WSL. This was very convenient because it allows me to have a strong password on my SSH keys, but provides a friendly developer experience since I do not need to enter those credentials every time I restart my machine. I added support for this into my dotfiles and dev-bootstrap process so I can set this up more quickly in the future.
    • I lost a lot of time while working on this due to hitting an issue I couldn’t figure out with the Windows OpenSSH. I could tell the pipe existed and I was connecting to it in WSL, but I would still be prompted for my password for the SSH key. This was remedied by updating OpenSSH on Windows to a newer version.
  • I added the ability to install apps through the Microsoft Store in dev-bootstrap because I have been liking the Trello app.
  • Yesterday I learned about the #100DaysOfHomeLab challenge and since it was the start of the new year today I decided to try to take it on. To support that endeavor I decided to start chronicling my journey in this blog for now. I intend to write this in Markdown as I go and for now I’m hoping to push it to a simple GitHub pages site.
    • :warning: Depending on how well GitHub Pages turns out I might look into deploying a CMS like WordPress or write my own blog shell using Next.js. It would give me a good excuse to tinker with Next.JS.