NavContainerHelper - Specify your own Database backup file to use with a NAV container

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If you haven't read the first post about the NavContainerHelper, you should do so.

If you have a database backup file (.bak), you can specify that as parameter to the container. You can specify the bakfile using a secure URL. Read this for information about how to create a secure url for a file.

 $imageName = "microsoft/dynamics-nav:2018-rtm"
$navcredential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentList "admin", (ConvertTo-SecureString -String "P@ssword1" -AsPlainText -Force)
New-NavContainer -accept_eula `
                 -containerName "test" `
                 -Auth NavUserPassword `
                 -imageName $imageName `
                 -Credential $navcredential `
                 -licenseFile "https://www.dropbox.com/s/abcdefghijkl/my.flf?dl=1" `
                 -additionalParameters @('--env bakfile="https://www.dropbox.com/s/abcdefghijkl/Demo%20Database%20NAV%20%2811-0%29.bak?dl=1"')

A second option is to place the .bak file in a folder, which you share to the container and then specify the container file path to the bakfile parameter in additionalParameters, like this:

 $imageName = "microsoft/dynamics-nav:2018-rtm"
$navcredential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentList "admin", (ConvertTo-SecureString -String "P@ssword1" -AsPlainText -Force)
New-NavContainer -accept_eula `
                 -containerName "test" `
                 -Auth NavUserPassword `
                 -imageName $imageName `
                 -Credential $navcredential `
                 -licenseFile "https://www.dropbox.com/s/abcdefghijkl/my.flf?dl=1" `
                 -additionalParameters @('--volume c:\temp\navdbfiles:c:\temp', '--env bakfile="c:\temp\Demo Database NAV (11-0).bak"')

A third optiopn is to specify the .bak file to the myscripts parameter and specify the path to the bakfile to be c:\run\my. All files specified in the myscripts parameter will be copied to the c:\run\my folder upon start of the container.

 $imageName = "microsoft/dynamics-nav:2018-rtm"
$navcredential = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -argumentList "admin", (ConvertTo-SecureString -String "P@ssword1" -AsPlainText -Force)
New-NavContainer -accept_eula `
                 -containerName "test" `
                 -Auth NavUserPassword `
                 -imageName $imageName `
                 -Credential $navcredential `
                 -licenseFile "https://www.dropbox.com/s/abcdefghijkl/my.flf?dl=1" `
                 -myScripts @("c:\temp\navdbfiles\Demo Database NAV (11-0).bak") `
                 -additionalParameters @('--env bakfile="c:\run\my\Demo Database NAV (11-0).bak"')

Note, when specifying a .bak file, the normal container initialization is still continuing and the NAV Super user will be created. This is not happening if you manually restore the .bak file to a SQL server and point out an external SQL Server database.

Enjoy

Freddy Kristiansen
Technical Evangelist