How to deploy a VM in Azure using Abiquo

Requirements

• Access key ID & Secret access key

  • For details of how to obtain Azure credentials, see Obtain Azure ARM credentials

Steps in Abiquo

1. Edit the Abiquo user that is going to deploy the VM to add their SSH public key. (If this is your user, put your current password on the General information tab of Edit user). See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/create-ssh-keys-detailed

2. Create a public cloud region (PCR) and select the provider (Azure) and the regions that would you like to use

3. Select your user icon in the bottom left corner, and from the menu, select Edit public cloud credentials. Add your Azure credentials

4. Go to the Catalogue, click the + add button. To speed up the search, select a provider and enter a name text (ubuntu, linux, windows, etc.). Click Search and wait. Select a template and import it.

5. If you do not wish to use the default Abiquo user, edit the template and add a Username and for Windows add a Password with at least 12 characters. For Linux, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/faq#what-are-the-username-requirements-when-creating-a-vm-. For Windows, see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/faq#what-are-the-username-requirements-when-creating-a-vm-

6. In the myCloud virtual datacenters view go to Global →  Resource groups, and create a resource group

7. Create a virtual datacenter, and select the previously created PCR as the Location

8. To use your VM with a basic SKU load balancer, in your virtual datacenter, go to Network and create an availability set

9. Create a firewall and add an inbound firewall rule to a firewall policy in the virtual datacenter to allow the SSH protocol for Linux or the RDP protocol for Windows. Allow the connections from the desired IP (or 0.0.0.0/0 if you don't know it, but be aware of the security implications). Also allow outbound traffic.

10. Create a virtual appliance

11. In the virtual appliance, click the + add button and select a template, and your availability set to create the VM, but don't deploy the VM.

12. Edit the VM, and on the Network tab, add a private IP, and then obtain a public IP and add it to the VM as part of the same vNIC

13. Then on the Firewall tab, select the firewall policy, then save.

14. Deploy the VM and wait for the VM to start up

15. Click the Console button

    1. Linux VMs: enter the username you set for the template and the private key

    2. Windows VMs: enter the username and password you set for the template 

16. Optionally, add more VMs in the same availability set and create a basic load balancer for them