How to restore an external database during the CI/CD run and connect the BC container to it?

[christianbraeunlich]

Hello everyone,

during the Continuous Integration process,
we want to connect the BC containers to an external database that is restored before the container is created,
in order to run our builds/tests for this database.

The section “Run-AlPipeline Script Override” in the file AL-Go/Scenarios/settings.md (https://github.com/microsoft/AL-Go/blob/main/Scenarios/settings.md# run-alpipeline-script-override),
mentions that “The Run-AlPipeline function supports override functions for creating containers, compiling apps, and many other things.”

I see that I could use the NewBcContainer.ps1 and provide the database information, but I first need to restore the external database on the database server, so a trigger event to add a custom script would be desirable, but I haven't found it yet,
or perhaps there is a better solution for this.

This leads to the question: "How to restore an external database during the CI/CD run and connect the BC container to it?"

I see the following steps to achieve the goal:

1. AL-Go CI/CD is triggered
2. Pre-Container event is triggered --> run custom script to restore the database on the database server
3. NewBcContainer.ps1 --> connect the BC container to the restored database
4. Post-Container event is triggered --> remove the external database

Thanks in advance,
/Christian

[aholstrup1]

PipelineInitialize.ps1 and PipelineFinalize.ps1 seem like good overrides to use in this case. You could also restore the database as part of your NewBcContainer.ps1 override as long as it happens prior to calling New-BCContainer.

Alternatively, if you have a .bak file you could also download it in the NewBcContainer.ps1 override and from there call New-BCContainer with the bakFile parameter.