Service Fabric ApplicationManifest parameterized certificaterefs?

Question

I have a solution with multiple SF services. Some of them use HTTPS endpoints, so I have these specs (details hidden or changed)

We are several developers, and we are using self-signed certificates for local deployment.

<Parameters>
    <Parameter Name="Api_SslCertHash" DefaultValue="<my-thumbprint-here!>" />
</Parameters>

and

<ServiceManifestImport>
    <ServiceManifestRef ServiceManifestName="SomeAppPkg" ServiceManifestVersion="1.0.0" />
    <Policies>
      <EndpointBindingPolicy EndpointRef="ServiceEndpointHttps" CertificateRef="mycert" />
    </Policies>
</ServiceManifestImport>

and then

<Certificates>
  <EndpointCertificate X509FindValue="[Api_SslCertHash]" Name="mycert" />
</Certificates>

Now the problem is that we have this file checked in to Git, and since everyone has their own self-signed cert (Not: I don't know if this has to be, maybe we can share certs, by the question remains anyway) the thumbprint is different per developer.

My question is: Is it possible to have the thumbprint in an environment-variable, or get it from another source instead of changing it in the ApplicationManifest. I realise that it could be hard in a cluster environment, but maybe when deploying locally?

I have a similar requirement for ServiceManifest, where I would like to have different port numbers. I know I can override it in Local.1Node.xml but it would be nice to be able to pick it up externally.

Answer 1

I don't see why you cant use a variable like you are doing in your last example, but that doesn't solve your multiple developer problem.

The correct way to handle this is to generate a certificate, check it into source control and make everyone else use the same certificate. In fact, if you set up a secure cluster in production, anyone who wants to be able to view the Explorer will need the same certificate installed on their machine in order to authenticate.