Microsoft Azure Architect Technologies – Step by step Implementing custom Azure VM images (part 9 of 10)

Scenario

Adatum Corporation wants to create custom Azure VM images

Objectives

After completing this lab, you will be able to:

• Create a custom VM image using HashiCorp Packer
• Deploy an Azure VM based on a custom image

Exercise 1: Creating a custom image

The main tasks for this exercise are as follows:

1. Configure a Packer template
2. Build a Packer-based image

Task 1: Configure a Packer template

1. From the lab virtual machine, start Microsoft Edge and browse to the Azure portal at http://portal.azure.com and sign in by using the Microsoft account that has the Owner role in the target Azure subscription.
2. In the Azure portal, in the Microsoft Edge window, start a Bash session within the Cloud Shell.
3. If you are presented with the You have no storage mounted message, configure storage using the following settings:
   • Subsciption: the name of the target Azure subscription
   • Cloud Shell region: the name of the Azure region that is available in your subscription and which is closest to the lab location
   • Resource group: az3000300-LabRG
   • Storage account: a name of a new storage account
   • File share: a name of a new file share

4. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to create a resource group and store the JSON output in a variable (replace the <Azure region> placeholder with the name of the Azure region that is available in your subscription and which is closest to the lab location):

RG=$(az group create –name az3000301-LabRG –location <Azure region>)

Note: To list Azure regions, run az account list-locations –output table

5. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to create a service principal that will be used by Packer and store the JSON output in a variable:

AAD_SP=$(az ad sp create-for-rbac)

6. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to retrieve the value of the service principal appId and store it in a variable

CLIENT_ID=$(echo $AAD_SP | jq -r .appId)

7. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to retrieve the value of the service principal password and store it in a variable

CLIENT_SECRET=$(echo $AAD_SP | jq -r .password)

8. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to retrieve the value of the service principal tenant ID and store it in a variable

TENANT_ID=$(echo $AAD_SP | jq -r .tenant)

9. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to retrieve the value of the subscription ID and store it in a variable:

SUBSCRIPTION_ID=$(az account show –query id | tr -d ‘”‘)

10. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to retrive the value of the resource group location and store it in a variable:

LOCATION=$(echo $RG | jq -r .location)

11. From the Cloud Shell pane, upload the Packer template \allfiles\AZ-300T01\Module_03\template03.json into the home directory. To upload a file, click the document icon that has an up and down arrow in the Cloud Shell pane.
12. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to replace the placeholder for the value of the client_id parameter with the value of the $CLIENT_ID variable in the Packer template:

sed -i.bak1 ‘s/”$CLIENT_ID”/”‘”$CLIENT_ID”‘”/’ ~/template03.json

13. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to replace the placeholder for the value of the client_secret parameter with the value of the $CLIENT_SECRET variable in the Packer template:

sed -i.bak2 ‘s/”$CLIENT_SECRET”/”‘”$CLIENT_SECRET”‘”/’ ~/template03.json

14. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to replace the placeholder for the value of the tenant_id parameter with the value of the $TENANT_ID variable in the Packer template:

sed -i.bak3 ‘s/”$TENANT_ID”/”‘”$TENANT_ID”‘”/’ ~/template03.json

15. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to replace the placeholder for the value of the subscription_id parameter with the value of the $SUBSCRIPTION_ID variable in the Packer template:

sed -i.bak4 ‘s/”$SUBSCRIPTION_ID”/”‘”$SUBSCRIPTION_ID”‘”/’ ~/template03.json

16. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to replace the placeholder for the value of the location parameter with the value of the $LOCATION variable in the Packer template:

sed -i.bak5 ‘s/”$LOCATION”/”‘”$LOCATION”‘”/’ ~/template03.json

Task 2: Build a Packer-based image

1. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to build the packer-based image:

packer build template03.json

2. Monitor the built progress until it completes.

Note: The build process might take about 10 minutes.

Result: After you completed this exercise, you have created a Packer template and used it to build a custom image.

Exercise 2: Deploying a custom image

The main tasks for this exercise are as follows:

1. Deploy an Azure VM based on a custom image
2. Validate Azure VM deployment

Task 1: Deploy an Azure VM based on a custom image

1. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to deploy an Azure VM based on the custom image.

az vm create –resource-group az3000301-LabRG –name az3000301-vm –image az3000301-image –admin-username student –generate-ssh-keys –size Standard_D2s_v3

2. Wait for the deployment to complete

Note: The deployment process might take about 3 minutes.

3. Once the deployment completes, from the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to allow inbound traffic to the newly deployed VM on TCP port 80:

az vm open-port –resource-group az3000301-LabRG –name az3000301-vm –port 80

Task 2: Validate Azure VM deployment

1. From the Cloud Shell pane, run the following to identify the IP address associated with the newly deployed Azure VM.

az network public-ip show –resource-group az3000301-LabRG –name az3000301-vmPublicIP –query ipAddress

2. Start Microsoft Edge and navigate to the IP address you identified in the previous step.
3. Verify that Microsoft Edge displays the Welcome to nginx! page.

Result: After you completed this exercise, you have deployed an Azure VM based on a custom image and validated the deployment.

Exercise 3: Remove lab resources

Task 1: Open Cloud Shell

1. At the top of the portal, click the Cloud Shell icon to open the Cloud Shell pane.
2. At the Cloud Shell command prompt, type in the following command and press Enter to list all resource groups you created in this lab:

az group list –query “[?starts_with(name,’az30003′)]”.name –output tsv

3. Verify that the output contains only the resource groups you created in this lab. These groups will be deleted in the next task.

Task 2: Delete resource groups

1. At the Cloud Shell command prompt, type in the following command and press Enter to delete the resource groups you created in this lab

az group list –query “[?starts_with(name,’az30003′)]”.name –output tsv | xargs -L1 bash -c ‘az group delete –name $0 –no-wait –yes’

2. Close the Cloud Shell prompt at the bottom of the portal.

Result: In this exercise, you removed the resources used in this lab.