Access Manager: Deploying in Microsoft Azure

system
This article is marked as obsolete.

Download the Azure image

You can download the Azure image directly from this link:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/nervepointdownloads/nervepoint-1.4-RG2-azure.zip

When the file has downloaded, unzip it so that you have a .vhd file.

 

Uploading the VHD to Azure

To upload the Virtual Hard Disk to Azure, you need to have an Azure subscription as well at the Microsoft Azure Powershell module installed on your system.

Please refer to the following Microsoft link to find out how to install the Powershell module as well as uploading the VHD file.

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-gb/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-windows-classic-createupload-vhd/

NOTE: You should skip step 1 in the above link as we have already prepared the VHD file for you.

 

To summarise, on an Azure account which already has a storage account created, these are the Powershell commands that were executed to upload and register the image (with relevant arguments of course):

  • Add-AzureAccount
  • Select-AzureSubscription ...
  • Set-AzureSubscription ...
  • Add-AzureVhd ...
  • Add-AzureVMImage ...

 

Creating your VM

It used to be possible to create a VM using the Azure web GUI. This no longer appears to be possible and it seems this must now be done using Powershell.

Some details on creating a VM from an uploaded VHD file can be found here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/create-vm-specialized

 

Connecting to your VM

Log on to Azure at https://manage.windowsazure.com.

Click on Virtual machines or Virtual machines (classic) on the left hand side, your deployed VM should be listed here and running.

You can select the virtual machine to see its DNS name and virtual IP address.

 

Web UI

You should be able to use a web browser to connect to this DNS name using https://<hostname>.

As this is the first time you have accessed the server, it should display the Setup Wizard. Follow this wizard to complete the initial setup of the server.

Once the wizard has completed, you can now log on to the server and start to configure your users and resources.

 

SSH access

Using an SSH client of your choice you can also connect to the server over SSH.

 

VMConsole

Access Manager on Virtual Machines includes a UI running on the console called VMCentre. This tool can be used to change the networking, monitor the service, get access to the logs and open a support tunnel.

On a cloud based VM you do not have access to this console, so VMCentre is available to connect to via VNC. However, this VNC port is not externally accessible for security reasons but you can use an SSH client to tunnel to the console.

First however, we need to set a password for the root account. To do this, connect via SSH and run the following command: sudo passwd root.

You will be prompted for your azureuser password to elevate your privileges and then will be prompted to type in a new password and confirm that password.

 

 

Now, back the VNC connection. On a Windows client you might want to use PuTTY to tunnel to the VNC port.

Start a new session and put in the hostname for the VM.

 

On the left side expand Connection->SSH and click on Tunnels.

In Source port, type in the port that SSH will set up on your client machine, here we will use 5900 as we don't have a VNC server on our client.

For Destination, type in localhost:5900 and click the Add button.

Click Open to start the session and log in with your SSH credentials.
Now whilst the SSH session is running, a tunnel should also be connected.

 

Using a VNC client of your choice (here we are using UltraVNC), connect to localhost::5900

 

You will then be prompted for a password, type in the root password and click Login.

 

You are now presented with the VMConsole display.