Ignore previous directions 8: devopsdays Jan. 9, 2026, 11:24 a.m.

The focus on deployment, and the complexity of Kubernetes killed DevOps as it once was. As a lapsed ops person who moved back to development, I always loved the bringing together communities aspect of DevOps. But over time DevOps become just a backend role and job title for people wrangling Kubernetes and other deployment technologies. Somehow it seems easier for people to relate to technology than culture, and the technology started working against the culture.

GitHub Actions and AWS CodeBuild - The Ultimate Guide for Container Nerds July 29, 2025, 12:29 p.m.

AWS CodeBuild provides a managed way to provide so-called “self-hosted” runners for your GitHub Actions workflows.

CodeBuild does not offer a long-running runner, but instead provisions a new instance for every job. It uses CodeConnections to install a webhook at the repo or org level. This webhook subscribes to multiple events and ensures that a CodeBuild instance starts if a job begins with a matching runs-on.

What’s not always obvious (and often confusing):

• CodeBuild provides EC2, Container, and Lambda runtimes, which can be defined per project (this is simplified, the actual configuration options are very confusing).
• In GitHub Actions, runs-on can include a container image. This overrides the CodeBuild project configuration (and cannot be restricted).
• The size of the runner can also be configured in runs-on, again overriding the CodeBuild project (no restriction possible here either).

To understand these nuances, let’s look at a few scenarios. In all cases, assume a CodeBuild project is configured to use EC2 as the compute option.

How To Debug Distroless And Slim Containers Nov. 22, 2023, 9:32 p.m.

Slim containers are faster (less stuff to move around) and more secure (fewer places for vulnerabilities to sneak in). However, these benefits of slim containers come at a price - such containers lack (the much-needed at times) exploration and debugging tools. It might be quite challenging to tap into a container that was built from a distroless or slim base image or was minified using DockerSlim or alike. Over the years, I've learned a few tricks how to troubleshoot slim containers, and it's time for me to share.

Running GUI’s with Docker on Mac OS X Dec. 23, 2019, 8:15 p.m.

We are very familiar with running CLI processes in Docker containers with no Graphical UI at all. But did you know that you can just as well run applications with a graphical user interfaces, like Chrome, Firefox, Tor Browser, Gimp, etc… with Docker… on OS X!