Getting Started With Azure

New in version 2014.1.0.

Azure is a cloud service by Microsoft providing virtual machines, SQL services, media services, and more. This document describes how to use Salt Cloud to create a virtual machine on Azure, with Salt installed.

You can find more information about Azure at http://www.windowsazure.com/.

Dependencies

  • The Azure Python SDK.
  • A Microsoft Azure account
  • OpenSSL (to generate the certificates)
  • Salt

Configuration

Set up the provider config at /etc/salt/cloud.providers.d/azure.conf:

# Note: This example is for /etc/salt/cloud.providers.d/azure.conf

my-azure-config:
  provider: azure
  subscription_id: 3287abc8-f98a-c678-3bde-326766fd3617
  certificate_path: /etc/salt/azure.pem

  # Set up the location of the salt master
  #
  minion:
    master: saltmaster.example.com

  provider: gce

The certificate used must be generated by the user. OpenSSL can be used to create the management certificates. Two certificates are needed: a .cer file, which is uploaded to Azure, and a .pem file, which is stored locally.

To create the .pem file, execute the following command:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout /etc/salt/azure.pem -out /etc/salt/azure.pem

To create the .cer file, execute the following command:

openssl x509 -inform pem -in /etc/salt/azure.pem -outform der -out /etc/salt/azure.cer

After you creating these files, the .cer file will need to be uploaded to Azure via the "Upload" action of the "Settings" tab of the management portal.

Cloud Profiles

Set up an initial profile at /etc/salt/cloud.profiles:

azure-ubuntu:
  provider: my-azure-config
  image: 'b39f27a8b8c64d52b05eac6a62ebad85__Ubuntu-12_04_3-LTS-amd64-server-20131003-en-us-30GB'
  size: Small
  location: 'East US'
  ssh_username: azureuser
  ssh_password: verybadpass
  slot: production
  media_link: 'http://portalvhdabcdefghijklmn.blob.core.windows.net/vhds'

These options are described in more detail below. Once configured, the profile can be realized with a salt command:

salt-cloud -p azure-ubuntu newinstance

This will create an salt minion instance named newinstance in Azure. If the command was executed on the salt-master, its Salt key will automatically be signed on the master.

Once the instance has been created with salt-minion installed, connectivity to it can be verified with Salt:

salt newminion test.ping

Profile Options

The following options are currently available for Azure.

provider

The name of the provider as configured in /etc/salt/cloud.providers.d/azure.conf.

image

The name of the image to use to create a VM. Available images can be viewed using the following command:

salt-cloud --list-images my-azure-config

size

The name of the size to use to create a VM. Available sizes can be viewed using the following command:

salt-cloud --list-sizes my-azure-config

location

The name of the location to create a VM in. Available locations can be viewed using the following command:

salt-cloud --list-locations my-azure-config

ssh_username

The user to use to log into the newly-created VM to install Salt.

ssh_password

The password to use to log into the newly-created VM to install Salt.

slot

The environment to which the hosted service is deployed. Valid values are staging or production. When set to production, the resulting URL of the new VM will be <vm_name>.cloudapp.net. When set to staging, the resulting URL will contain a generated hash instead.

Show Instance

This action is a thin wrapper around --full-query, which displays details on a single instance only. In an environment with several machines, this will save a user from having to sort through all instance data, just to examine a single instance.

salt-cloud -a show_instance myinstance

Current Salt release: 2014.1.6

Docs for previous releases on salt.rtfd.org.

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