Web Console Access for Azure Virtual Machine? - azure

Question

There's any way to access a Virtual Machine with boot problems in windows azure ?
i have a linux VM and i misconfigured a swap file causing boot problems
but Azure dont let me check the details.
In the portal i only have the option to restart or shutdown or delete.
When i google at the problem the only solution i found is:
Download Azure Hard Disk Drive attached to virtual machinne
Mount it locally on a Virtual Instance on my PC
Fix the configuration and save it
Upload the whole HD back to azure VM and pray.
Any other solutions ?
DigitalOcean has a webinterface that let you see the boot procces on your VMs. There is something like this on azure ?

Answer 1

When i contact Azure Support they give this solution:
As console access is not an available feature yet in Azure, you will basically be mounting the problem OS disk as a data disk on a working VM to correct changes to the file system configuration:
A = Original VM (Inaccessible VM)
B = New VM (New Temp VM)
1) Stop VM A via the Azure management portal
2) Delete VM A BUT select “keep the attached disks”
3) Once the lease is cleared, attach the Data Disk from A to VM B via the Azure Portal, Virtual Machines, Select “A”, Attach Disk
4) On VM “B” eventually the disk will attach and you can then mount it.
5) Locate the drive name to mount, on VM “B” look in relevant log file note each linux is slightly different.
grep SCSI /var/log/kern.log (ubuntu)
6) Mount the attached disk onto mountpoint /tempmount
df -h
mkdir /tempmount
mount /dev/sdc1 /tempmount
df –h
7) Change into /etc directory where the original OS disk from resides
cd /tempmount/etc/
cp fstab fstab_orig
8) Now that you have made a backup of you fstab you can proceed to make the changes you require using vi, nano or your preferred text editor.
vi fstab
cd /
umount /tempmount
9) Detach the disk from VM B via the management portal
10) Recreate the original VM A (Create VM from Gallery, Select My Disks) you will see the Disk referring to VM A – Select the original Cloud Service name.
i think that there is the best solution for now.