publishing image to azure

README.md

Publishing an image on Azure

Installation of azure cli tools

The azure cli tool is used to do this publication. To install it follow below. For further questions see Azure CLI Install

# add ~/bin and add it to path
mkdir -p ~/bin/
[ "${PATH#*$HOME/bin}" = "$PATH" ] || PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH

# install npm
sudo apt --quiet update
sudo apt --quiet --assume-yes install npm nodejs-legacy </dev/null

mkdir azure
( cd azure && npm install azure-cli ) </dev/null
ln -s $PWD/azure/node_modules/azure-cli/bin/azure ~/bin/

# avoid a prompt about enabling data collection
azure telemetry --disable

# enable bash completion
azure --completion >> azure/completion.sh
echo source \"$PWD/azure/completion.sh\" >> ~/.profile
. azure/completion.sh

Logging in with your client

Now you have to get this client logged in. See 'cli connect' doc for more information.

azure login
# This prints an activation code and a link to https://aka.ms/devicelogin
# load that page in your browser, enter the activation code, hit enter.

# Various things require different 'subscriptions'.  Just register
# for these now.
azure provider register Microsoft.Storage
azure provider register Microsoft.Network
azure provider register Microsoft.Compute

Publish an Image

Links:

• Classic Create Upload VHD
• Virtual Machines Upload VHD (ASM)

We use the new (ASM) method here.

# install qemu utils to make a raw disk
sudo apt install --quiet --assume-yes qemu-utils cloud-image-utils </dev/null

# get a raw file
url=http://example.com/your/image.qcow
img=${url##*/}
img_raw=${img%.qcow2}.raw
img_vhd="${img_raw%.raw}.vhd"
wget "$url" -O "$img.dist"
qemu-img convert -O raw "$img" "$img_raw"
# quite possibly do not need intermediate raw but wanted to resize
qemu-img resize -f raw "${img_raw}" 8G

# see Notes below wrt fixed and force_size
qemu_ver=$(qemu-img --version | awk '{print $3}')
case "${qemu_ver}" in
   2.[012345]*|1.*) subfmt="fixed";;
   *) subfmt="fixed,force_size";;     # anything 2.6+
esac

qemu-img convert -O vpc -o "subformat=${subfmt}" "$img_raw" "${img_vhd}"

# set up resource group and storage account
# resource groups and storage accounts are case insensitive. storage account
# complains that it has to be lower case on creation and 3-24 lower case or numeric.
# storage accounts are globally unique
rgroup="xx16resourcegroup"
stgaccount="xx16stgaccount"
container="xx16images"
location="westus"
azure group create "$rgroup" --location="$location"
azure storage account create "$stgaccount$location" "--resource-group=$rgroup" \
    --location="$location" --kind Storage --sku-name PLRS

key1=$(azure storage account keys list "$stgaccount" "--resource-group=$rgroup" |
       awk '$2 == "key1" { print $3 }' )

azure storage container create "--account-name=$stgaccount" \
    "--account-key=$key1" "--container=$container"

# this took 10 minutes for me, from azure to azure (image is 8G).  I was uploading
# from useast to uswest.  Probably should launch in the location you publish to.
time azure storage blob upload --blobtype=page --account-name=$stgaccount \
   --account-key=$key1 --container=$container "$img_vhd"

# you can later remove this with:
# azure storage blob delete --quiet \
#    --account-name=$stgaccount --account-key=$key1 --container=$container "$img_vhd"

Notes:

• -o subformat=fixed,force_size from Information for Non-Endorsed Distributions. On qemu >= 2.6 you also need force_size

Boot the image

# now to boot that thing
img_vhd=image.qcow
rgroup="xx16resourcegroup"
stgaccount="xx16stgaccount"
container="xx16images"
location="westus"
img_urn="https://${stgaccount}.blob.core.windows.net/${container}/${img_vhd}"
vmname=myvm2
time azure vm create --os-type=Linux \
   --ssh-publickey-file=$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub \
   --admin-username=ubuntu --location=$location \
   --resource-group=$rgroup --storage-account-name="$stgaccount" \
   --image-urn="$img_urn" \
   --nic-name=${vmname}-nic1 \
   --vnet-name=${vmname}-vnet1 --vnet-address-prefix=192.168.77.0/24 \
   --vnet-subnet-name=${vmname}-subnet1 \
   --vnet-subnet-address-prefix=192.168.77.0/24 \
   --public-ip-domain-name=${vmname} \
   --public-ip-name=${vmname}-pubip1 \
   $vmname

Note, the vm create command hangs for a crazy amount of time, while the machine is actually booting. I think it may hang waiting for system to identify itself fabric. So don't think that it has to come back to go looking further.

Get console output of a vm with:

azure vm get-serial-output $rgroup $vnname > out

Current state is that I believe the initramfs does not wait for block despite having been modified with 'rootdelay=300'. Here is a bootlog with debug=1. (http://paste.ubuntu.com/23427501/)