I am trying to automate VMs onboarding process for Azure Update Management. I am wondering if it possible, I didnt find solution which I can use to full onboard VM to Update Management, from A-Z. I mean I need MMA agent installation (i have script prepared, for installing mma vm extension with workspace ID and Key). Problem is that thare I didn't find a way to perform rest of the steps. Did anyone try to do this, I know that Ms give the runbook form this but I am not sure if its working as expected, link here --> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/update-management/enable-from-runbook
You can automate it by configuring UM to automatically enable for all existing and future VMs using this method - Enable Machine in the workspace
But keep in mind that using this method doesn't allow you to have the control an enterprise customer would want.
We don't have an out of the box method to configure from the VM, onboarding it to UM in an automated manner. Based on how it is designed, the only way out of the box is from the portal, or runbook as described in docs.
Programatically to work around this (and I'm thinking out loud here) you could update the saved search query - MicrosoftDefaultComputerGroup in the workspace with the UUID of the VM and that would automate onboarding it to the feature. I don't have a working example to share but I think the approach is sound and can be included in the workflow to onboard it.
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Can someone pls help me to automate build and release pipelines in Azure DevOps for Azure DB for PostgreSQL database (Single Server) so that I can create a Database and run different scripts in that database for creating/altering tables, functions, indexes etc. ?
I googled and found nothing in Microsoft documentation for this purpose but I did find it can be done using Zapier
As per organizational policies I can not use Zapier or any third-party tools/sites.
Is it doable only using Microsoft build and release tasks in Azure DevOps, can someone pls guide me with any steps for this purpose ?
Database DevOps is difficult because you have to manipulate existing objects, not simply replace them like you do for application deployments. To do this, you have to add a tool that manages your Data Definition Language queries. Or you can build one. We did that a long time ago. I don't recommend it. Tons of work, lots of issues.
For PostgreSQL, I'd suggest you start testing Flyway. It works really well with Azure DevOps. I have a short video you can use to see it in action. Flyway is open source, so getting started with it is license free. You can install the software, but it also runs through containers, so it makes it really simple to implement through the Azure DevOps agents. The concept is pretty simple. It acts as a marshalling tool to run your DDL in the correct order, like a manifest. Then, it marks the database so it knows which scripts it has already run. You go from there.
Is there a way to programmatically configure Azure Cloud Shell without having to launch it and have it create a new storage account and file share (or go manually configure it to use existing resources)?
I'd like to be able to have an Azure CLI script (or Terraform) create the storage account and file share for me and have Azure Cloud Shell detect these resources and use them so when the Cloud Shell button is clicked there is not configuration needed.
This is needed whenever a new account is created or the resource group that contains the Cloud Shell storage account is deleted.
I believe currently feature to programmatically configure Cloud Shell to detect and select particular storage account and file share is not supported. So I would recommend you to raise this as a feature request in this Uservoice or feedback forum.
However, IF the actual use case and requirement is - " to access the Cloud Shell (https://shell.azure.com/) without configuration need or at least by configuring only one time per subscription (that may be done manually)", THEN this is the feature request for the same which is already raised in Uservoice or feedback forum. So if interested, I recommend you to upvote it and other features that are of interest.
In general, Azure feature or product team would check feasibility of a feature request, triage it, prioritize against existing feature backlog, add in roadmap as appropriate and would announce and/or update the related Azure document once a feature request is addressed.
I want to create an automation demo for customers, where I have a single page web app with a couple of input text fields, and the inputs get used as parameters in the creation of an Azure Resource Group and VNETs/VMs/etc within the Resource Group.
I can do all of the above with Azure CLI (v2.0) on my laptop, and also from CLI using a Azure CLI in a bash script on a Linux server, but I wanted something web-based. I considered standing up a web page on the Linux server to call the bash script, but that seems a bit painful (especially with permissions etc). I also thought maybe Azure Functions could provide a solution to host the single web page app and call the Azure CLI commands, but I've never used Functions before so not sure if Functions can do this; the description of Functions' capabilities aren't clear to me.
What is the best way to achieve what I'm after, quickly?
Note I'm not a developer, I'm a network engineer, so whilst I can hack around in a few languages from Notepad and vi, I'm not looking to build something in a full SDK, or have something with enterprise-level reliability, version control, etc. This is really all about proof of concept and web-based demo of something I already have in Azure CLI / bash script.
Thanks in advance :-)
For a quick and relatively dirty way, you could create an Azure Runbook (using the scripts created from the Azure Portal) and invoke using the Automation API This could use the scripts (or close to) what you already have.
When you roll out a new service in Azure you get the option now to download the Automation Script, you can then follow this article to deploy the generated script via a runbook
To follow on from Jamie's idea.
You can code your Azure Cli script (or Powershell) into an Azure Automation Runbook, you can have variables etc to access it with.
You can then attach a webhook to that runbook, and call it from a standard HTTP Post request.
Meaning you could create a HTML form, that would pass whatever variables are required and build whatever is needed.
The downside of this would be that you will be creating it on your infrastructure.
You can have a solution that will deploy to someone else's infrastructure with a deploy to Azure button
This lets you host it in Github etc, it takes a bit more knowledge to make it work but saves your account dollars!
My company developed an Azure Resource Manager-based solution that deploys a set of resources (essentially a Storage, SQL DB and Web App), and it is already implemented as our provisioning process for new customers.
However, we are now studying the best way to perform updates, and one of the hypotheses we are considering is having a specific template that updates the binaries of this application.
The idea is to have a separate template, that only has the web app, an app host and a MSDeploy resource that gets the latest version of our package and reuploads it to that web app.
The only problem I'm seeing with this solution is the ability to handle any changes in configuration that are necessary with newer version of the binaries - we do not want users to have to re-input any parameters they placed for the original deploy (done via a Deploy To Azure button), so, any configurations will have to be performed within the application - the plan is for it to use the Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Management.WebSites library.
The major limitation with using Microsoft.WindowsAzure.Management.WebSites is that you are restricted to authenticating with either a certificate or a service principal. Ideally we would like to find a way for the updates to not need any authentication other than the one you provide when you are deploying the update.
Is there any recommendation of best practices to follow for this kind of scenario?
Thank you.
Link to the equivalent discussion on TechNet
It is possible to update only via ARM templates.
For example connection strings can be added automatically to the application settings even when creating the dependent resources themselves.
Ex. Account storage connection string.
Only first time creation of your web sites will take a bit more time, something like 30 sec.
ARM will not destroy your WebApps if they exist already. it will update only.
If there are no changes, then the deployment is very fast.
If your changes require a new Appsettings parameter, you can enter it in ARM , check in to your repository.
and next deployment will pick up and update the WebApp.
So no need for anyone to log-in and update.
Our final decision was to give up on using ARM exclusively. The Service Principal solution, through the SDK, would allow us to use a Web Job or a Site Extension to perform (automatic or prompted) updates that included configuration changes. However, it would require "too many" privileges - why would a customer trust an application that can, at will, create new resources or update existing ones to increase his Azure bill?
The decision was made to utilize Powershell only for updates - if the customer can see the scripts and authenticate himself, this is not a concern. Sadly, this increases update complexity, but we found it to be a necessary evil.
Is there any way to save the complete state of my azure configuration?
Basically, I just created a demo for a project I'm working on. This demo has a website/webjob, scheduler, storage queue, storage blob, redis cache and documentDB. I have configured these components in terms of size/scale/schedules but now the demo is done.
I don't want to pay for these services and I don't need them online for now. However, I don't want to have to recreate and reconfigure them if I need to relaunch the demo in a month.
Is there a way to save my current azure configurations to a file and then to be able to recreate all the services again automatically (with a script or a small program)?
Thanks!
This is a very good question, that sums up a historical problem we're in the process of making easier and more flexible. I'll answer this question with two parts.
First and foremost, you have tools like the PowerShell cmdlets now, that you can script out the creation of an entire "world" in Azure and then re-run whenever you want, against a subscription, to scaffold out a whole architecture. You can also use the management libraries for .NET to do this from a .NET application. When we embarked on the VS WebJobs tooling, for instance, I worked up a prototype for my developers on using MAML to create WebJobs and scheduler job collections. You can see the demo code for that here: https://github.com/bradygaster/maml-demo-scheduled-webjob-creator
We've also recently embarked on new mission of re-creating a lot of the management APIs so that they support the notion of templates and resource groups, to marry up with the new portal experience. Here's a great MSDN article that discusses how the PowerShell cmdlets for the Gallery could be used to pull down a list of the various templates that could then be pushed back up as fully-baked architectures running in Azure. You have the capability of building these templates yourself, then you could use these cmdlets to fan out and create things that you write up in your own custom templates. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn654596.aspx
Hope this helps!
For Azure websites you can use the Back and Restore option to store the site and restore it back when you want to demo again, But all you have to do is Stop the services and you should be able to keep the demo without incurring cost.