Local DevOps Environments, Virtualization & Workflow Automation
Welcome to the DevOps and local engineering hub on saotn.org. Modern software delivery and infrastructure-as-code demand a local workstation that is versatile, fast, and seamlessly integrated. For engineering professionals operating in hybrid environments, bridging the gap between Windows hosts and Linux-native development stacks is a vital everyday requirement.
This section provides deep technical walkthroughs and performance tuning advice for building cutting-edge DevOps environments on Windows 11. From setting up cloud-ready container hosts and local virtualization clusters to automating your local developer toolchain, these blueprints focus on eliminating friction and maximizing development velocity.
Core DevOps & Virtualization Pillars
To help you architect your ultimate workstation, our core DevOps documentation is grouped by implementation focus:
Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2): Unlock full Linux performance directly inside Windows. Master next-generation network architectures with essential updates like enabling native IPv6 support for WSL2 or configuring advanced system mirrors.
KVM Virtualization & Remote Management: Run heavy, isolated test clusters without performance overhead. Learn how to securely connect to a remote KVM host through an SSH tunnel or orchestrate virtual machines graphically using virt-manager on Windows host systems.
DevOps Toolchain Integration: Build an integrated, automated development workspace. Discover how to consolidate your editors, shell environments, container runtimes, and deployment keys into a production-ready Windows 11 and WSL 2 DevOps environment.
Secure Pipeline & Access Control: Protect your repositories and access tokens at the workstation level. Implement hardware-backed authorization keys and automated environment variables to guarantee safe code delivery from your local shell.
Browse the chronological feed below for automated deployment scripts, custom configuration profiles, and advanced troubleshooting guides for modern engineering workflows.
Windows Server
The fire-and-forget method to update SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) automatically by uninstalling any installed version and downloading & installing the newest available version from Microsoft.
Windows Server
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Have a need for IIS in your Windows 11 development station, and now you wonder how to install IIS? Here I describe how you can easily install IIS and some modules using PowerShell
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Easily send your DevOps reporting by email with this PowerShell function, because the Send-MailMessage cmdlet is obsolete. Of course you’ll be using StartTLS and authenticated SMTP as additional security.
Windows Server
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Set up debugging symbols for WinDbg in Windows and debug BSOD like a boss. Set symbol path for WinDbg.
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Stop hunting for command-line arguments. Learn the definitive way to extract files from an MSI package using the msiexec /a switch, TARGETDIR, and PowerShell for automated deployments.
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Connect virt-manager to a KVM host through an ssh tunnel and arbitrary port in Windows using Windows 11 and WSL 2.
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In this post I describe some of the settings and changes I made to make my Windows 11 and Ubuntu WSL2 into a fully fledged development environment. Here are the settings and tools I use for DevOps / SysOps on Windows.
Windows Server
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Secure your Windows 11 environment by moving SSH private keys to hardware. Learn how to configure YubiKey FIDO2/U2F support in native OpenSSH, manage the ssh-agent, and eliminate file-based credential risks.
Windows Server
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Learn how to install SQL Server cumulative updates (CU) silently using PowerShell opposed to the cumbersome task of running the GUI installer.
Windows Server
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Microsoft have released their OpenSSH port for Windows Server and Windows 10 back in 2015. Here is how to install the OpenSSH Server on Windows Server 2022, 2019 and 2016.
Windows Server
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When you migrate a file server and transfer data, you may need to recreate junction points, as they cannot be copied using (for example) Robocopy.exe. This makes it a must to know where you have junction points, and NTFS hard and soft links. This is where PowerShell comes to the rescue.
Windows Server
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In this post, I will show you how to connect to your KVM VMs (virtual machines) in Windows 10 via SSH using virt-manager (Virtual Machine Manager) and qemu+ssh://. This allows you to manage your virtual machines from Windows.
Windows Server
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Using -SeachBase with PowerShell’s Get-ADComputer gives me faster results with AD DS queries.
Windows Server
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Learn how to silently import a .reg file into your Windows Registry. This neat regedit trick comes in handy quite often. The regedit command is valid for Windows 11, 10, Windows Server 2022, 2019 and older.
Windows Server
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Set SVN_EDITOR environment variable in Windows Server to resolve the svn error “None of the environment variables SVN_EDITOR, VISUAL or EDITOR is set, and no ‘editor-cmd’ run-time configuration option was found.”
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Users can install and run multiple .NET Framework versions on their computers. When you develop or deploy your app, you might need to know which .NET versions are installed on a machine and here is how to check the .NET version.
Windows Server
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You sometimes need to list and get all MAC addresses of all Hyper-V virtual machines in your network. Either for your Hyper-V administration or provisioning if you don’t set an unique MAC address automatically. Here is how to get all those MAC addresses easily with PowerShell.
Codebase
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Windows PowerShell is an important tool in Windows Server for administrators. You can use PowerShell for Windows Server administration, software installation, automation, and shell/command-prompt scripting.
GNU/Linux
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In this article I’ll show you how to install Varnish Cache on CentOS, version 6.7 in this case. Varnish is a web application accelerator also known as a caching HTTP reverse proxy. You install it in front of any server that speaks HTTP and configure it to cache the contents.
Windows Server
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By default, an IIS application pool (or “AppPool”) recycles on a regular time interval of 1740 minutes, or 29 hours. One reason for this time interval is that application pools don’t recycle at the same moment every day (every day at 07.00 for example).