H All
I'm trying to get a full list of functionality the OMS agent for Linux provides in Azure. I understand it provides host level and guest level monitoring, but what other benefits are there for it? Also would anyone know if it makes any changes to the OS, apart from configuring the agent to gather the data\metrics.
Also are there any known issues with RedHat VMs?
Thanks in Advance
From the document,
The agent for Linux and Windows isn't only for connecting to Azure
Monitor, it also supports Azure Automation to host the Hybrid Runbook
worker role and other services such as Change Tracking, Update
Management, and Azure Security Center. For more information about the
Hybrid Runbook Worker role, see Azure Automation Hybrid Runbook
Worker.
Also, you can see the supported scenarios for more details.
note that, refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/platform/log-analytics-agent#agent-prerequisites
Either rsyslog or syslog-ng are required to collect syslog messages.
The default syslog daemon on version 5 of Red Hat Enterprise Linux,
CentOS, and Oracle Linux version (sysklog) is not supported for syslog
event collection. To collect syslog data from this version of these
distributions, the rsyslog daemon should be installed and configured
to replace sysklog.
Related
I have the need to send my logs to Azure for my custom product. The users of my product can decide what to do (if anything) with these logs. I created a Log Analytics Workspace in the Azure Console. To add a Linux server, I clicked on Advanced Settings, then Connected Sources -> Linux Servers and followed the link to “Download Agent for Linux”, which took me to a Git Hub project. The agent worked and added my server to the workspace. What confused me is the name of the agent, “Microsoft OMS Agent for Linux GA v1.9.0-0”. I have recently read articles that indicate the OMS Portal is retired and is moving to the Azure Portal.
First did I do this correct?
Second, is this the Linux agent that will be used going forward, or will it be renamed to remove OMS from the name?
Is this the Azure Log Analytics agent that I should use and it was previously referred to as the Microsoft Monitoring Agent (MMA) or OMS Linux agent?
Thank you if you can clear this up for me!
The answer to your first question is yes, what you did was correct.
The answer to your second question is yes, most probably this should be the Linux agent that will be used going forward as well because as per this -> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-monitor/terminology#april-2018---retirement-of-operations-management-suite-brand article the changes and protential improvements with respect to single integrated platform for monitoring has been made to experience in the Azure portal but their functionality hasn't changed. Also, as per this -> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/extensions/oms-linux article the OMS agents will just be referred as Log Analytics agents. The same was seen in overview part of this -> https://github.com/Microsoft/OMS-Agent-for-Linux install guide as well.
The answer to your third question is yes, this is the Log Analytics agent you would have to use. For windows the extension / agent is referred as "MicrosoftMonitoringAgent" and for Linux it is referred as "OMSAgentForLinux".
Hope this helps!!
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/container-instances/container-instances-multi-container-group
Below is a quote from the above URL.
Is there a technical reason that windows is not supported?
Or will it eventually be supported? If yes, any idea when windows will be supported?
Multi-container groups are currently restricted to Linux containers. While we are working to bring all features to Windows containers, you can find current platform differences in Quotas and region availability for Azure Container Instances.
Multi-container group is currently restricted to Linux containers because network namespace is not available on Windows. Maybe it would be supported for windows in future.
You can get more details following this link.
Product team from ACI here - docs are correct that Windows containers do not support multi-container groups yet. We will update the documentation to be clearer about that.
We do plan to support multi-container groups for Windows though, currently estimated for support in late 2018 / early 2019. Stay tuned to Azure updates for the latest.
As part of our development process we are required to certify our drivers against the Microsoft HLK/HCK test suites. As our testing infrastructure exists in Azure, I need a method to enable secure boot via ARM template (or other method) on the Azure Marketplace based VMs.
I have scoured the interwebs for references to this process, but was unable to find anything.
Is there an option anywhere in the latest ARM versions that would allow me to secure boot enable my Server 2016-Datacenter Azure VMs?
https://argonsys.com/learn-microsoft-cloud/library/secure-boot-on-virtual-machines/
This could be enabled on the Guest OS level if the powershell run upon the Guest OS goes through. If not it could be within the ARM GitHub Schema prior to being documented. If not Microsoft may need to intervene on a low severity task.
Does windows Azure supports windows Services ?, ...
I develop an application that has among its components a windows service that every hour sends an email with information.
Is this supported in Windows Azure?,
Thanks!!
You might find the worker role is a better fit for running a process every hour. If you have the code for the WIndows Service it should not be hard to impleemnt it in a worker role.
You will, however, have to use a 3rd party service to send the email, as this is not supported in Azure.
Regards,
Alan
Yes, you can do this*. In order to install a Windows Service in a PaaS worker role (or web role), you will need to create a startup script that installs the service on boot (and checks to see if already installed on subsequent boots).
If you are using IaaS VMs, then the installation is straightforward - just do as you do today.
*Windows Azure Websites is a shared model, so installing services is not supported there.
To combine both Alan Smith's and dunnry's answers, both are correct -
You can install a windows services on a PaaS role using a startup script (other than web sites).
If you're using a Virtual Machine you just install the service on the VM
But Alan is completely correct that the best route forward in most cases is migrating the code to a worker role which is usually quite straight forward, would work best and would be easier to maintain.
Having said all of that - sending emails from within Azure is not necessarily a good idea as many mail servers black list the ips (turns out Azure is a great platform for spammers)
I want to make an extra addition to Alan and Yossi's answers. It's important to know the why, because simply installing the Windows Service shouldn't be a problem.
But if you do this you'll be missing out on something very important. If you run all of your code in the actual Worker Role process you'll get the monitoring for free. This means, if your process crashes for whatever reason, Windows Azure will restart the instance to make sure the process gets back online.
Now if you simply go and install a Windows Service through a startup script you won't be able to take advantage from this automated monitoring. You'll need to make sure you have some kind of recovery (this could be a setting on the Windows Service or a different process). But it's simply too much work for something you could get for free.
I would suggest using a Extra-Small VM using a windows template that is already offered. It's the same cost as the worker role and will let you provision your service without any issues. You would install your service the same as you would on any on premises server.
If you don't need to have the same sort of failover scenario that your web roles do then this s a good option.
I am stuck with the question if a Web Service implemented in Windows Azure have to run in a Web role, or is it possible to have it run in a Worker role ? If so, is there an alternative way to monitor the http-traffic, because a Worker role don't give access to the IIS logs ?
BR/Christer
You can run your web services in a Worker Role via ServiceHost (you can also run them with ServiceHost in a Web Role if you wanted). By default, IIS isn't activated in a Worker Role, which is why you don't have IIS logs.
There are several WCF performance counters you could look at, but you probably need to look at networking performance counters for byte-level details.
EDIT: To address question of how to access performance counters: using Remote Desktop should be reserved for debugging purposes. Instead, it's better to collect performance counters with the Diagnostic Monitor, then publish them to Windows Azure Table storage for external access. See this article for a quick intro to Windows Azure and performance counters. The article shows how to manually query the performance counters (which get published to WADPerformanceCountersTable). You can also view this table through Visual Studio (once you install the Windows Azure tools), or through 3rd-party tools such as Cerebrata Azure Diagnostics Manager.