With the release of Windows Azure Virtual Machines and Virtual Networks into general availability the Windows Azure PowerShell team has been working feverishly to provide an even more powerful automation experience for deploying virtual machines in the cloud.

Remote PowerShell on Windows Azure – Automating Virtual Machines

One of the key requests we have heard from customers is to go beyond the current capabilities of automated infrastructure provisioning and allow the user to bootstrap a virtual machine as part of a fully automated deployment.

With this release we are announcing that Remote PowerShell will be enabled by default on Windows based virtual machines created with the latest version of the Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets.

Enabling Remote PowerShell allows a user to create a virtual machine and on boot immediately launch a script to bootstrap whatever configuration is desired. This could be installing and configuring Windows Roles and Features all the way to downloading and deploying an application or website. Authentication is over SSL for security and you can use your own certificate or we can even generate one for you. In addition to the bootstrapping abilities Remote PowerShell allows you to write powerful scripts for remote management and automation that can be ran at any time after the virtual machine is booted. The same scripts you use to manage your on-premises servers will work with your servers in Windows Azure. Of course, we do provide a switch to disable this functionality on boot if Remote PowerShell is not desired.

Installing Windows Server Features Automatically

In the example below the new -WaitForBoot parameter is used with New-AzureVM. This switch tells the cmdlet to wait for the virtual machine to be in the RoleReady (booted) state before continuing execution. Once the virtual machine is ready the script calls the Get-AzureWinRMUri cmdlet to retrieve the connection string to execute a remote script against the virtual machine. The script block passed to Invoke-Command installs the Web-Server IIS and the related management tools.

A PowerShell scripter could easily extend this script to automatically deploy a custom web application or service with just a few additional lines of code.

Installing Windows Features using Remote PowerShell

# Using this script installs the generated cert into your local cert store which allows 
# PowerShell to verify it is communicating with the correct endpoint. 
# This REQUIRES PowerShell run Elevated
. "C:\Scripts\WAIaaSPS\RemotePS\InstallWinRMCert.ps1" 

$user = ""
$pwd = ""
$svcName = ""
$VMName = "webfe1" 
$location = "West US"

$credential = Get-Credential 

New-AzureVMConfig -Name $VMName -InstanceSize "Small" -ImageName $image |
                Add-AzureProvisioningConfig -Windows -AdminUsername $user -Password $pwd |
                Add-AzureEndpoint -Name "http" -Protocol tcp -LocalPort 80 -PublicPort 80 |
                New-AzureVM -ServiceName $svcName -Location $location -WaitForBoot 

# Get the RemotePS/WinRM Uri to connect to
$uri = Get-AzureWinRMUri -ServiceName $svcName -Name $VMName 

# Using generated certs – use helper function to download and install generated cert.
InstallWinRMCert $svcName $VMName 

# Use native PowerShell Cmdlet to execute a script block on the remote virtual machine
Invoke-Command -ConnectionUri $uri.ToString() -Credential $credential -ScriptBlock {
    $logLabel = $((get-date).ToString("yyyyMMddHHmmss"))
    $logPath = "$env:TEMP\init-webservervm_webserver_install_log_$logLabel.txt"
    Import-Module -Name ServerManager
    Install-WindowsFeature -Name Web-Server -IncludeManagementTools -LogPath $logPath
} 

Contents of InstallWinRMCert.ps1

function InstallWinRMCert($serviceName, $vmname)
{
    $winRMCert = (Get-AzureVM -ServiceName $serviceName -Name $vmname | select -ExpandProperty vm).DefaultWinRMCertificateThumbprint

    $AzureX509cert = Get-AzureCertificate -ServiceName $serviceName -Thumbprint $winRMCert -ThumbprintAlgorithm sha1

    $certTempFile = [IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()
    Write-Host $certTempFile
    $AzureX509cert.Data | Out-File $certTempFile

    # Target The Cert That Needs To Be Imported
    $CertToImport = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2 $certTempFile

    $store = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Store "Root", "LocalMachine"
    $store.Certificates.Count
    $store.Open([System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.OpenFlags]::ReadWrite)
    $store.Add($CertToImport)
    $store.Close()

    Remove-Item $certTempFile
}

Image and Disk Mobility

Windows Azure is an open computing platform and allows for the movement of your virtual machine disks between on-premises and the cloud. There are two optimized cmdlets that enable either you to upload your VHD or download it.

Uploading a VHD

The first example shows how to upload a VHD to Windows Azure. This can be a bootable OS disk or simply a data disk (remove -OS Windows for data disks). After Add-AzureDisk is called you could use the New-AzureVMConfig cmdlet or the management portal to provision a virtual machine that boots off of the uploaded VHD.

$source = "C:\vmstorage\myosdisk.vhd"
$destination = "https://<yourstorage>.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/myosdisk.vhd"

Add-AzureVhd -LocalFilePath $source -Destination $destination -NumberOfUploaderThreads 5
Add-AzureDisk -DiskName 'myosdisk' -MediaLocation $destination -Label 'mydatadisk' -OS Windows 

Downloading a VHD

Not only can you upload a disk to Windows Azure but it is also easy to download a VHD as well! The example below shows how you can save a VHD to the local file system ready to run on a Hyper-V enabled system. (Note: a virtual machine should not write to the VHD at the same time you are trying to download it).

$source = "https://<yourstorage>.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/myosdisk.vhd"
$destination = "C:\vmstorage\myosdisk.vhd"
Save-AzureVhd -Source $source -LocalFilePath $destination -NumberOfThreads 5 

VMDK Conversion and Migration to Windows Azure

If you have VMWare based virtual machines that you would like to migrate you can use the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Solution Accelerator to convert the disks to VHDs and then use the Add-AzureVHD cmdlet to upload the VHD and create a virtual machine in Windows Azure from it.

Copying a VHD across Windows Azure Regions

# Source VHD (West US)
$srcUri = "http://<yourweststorage>.blob.core.windows.net/vhds/myosdisk.vhd"      

# Target Storage Account (East US)
$storageAccount = "<youreaststorage>"
$storageKey = "<youreaststoragekey>"

$destContext = New-AzureStorageContext  –StorageAccountName $storageAccount `
                                        -StorageAccountKey $storageKey  

# Container Name
$containerName = "vhds"

New-AzureStorageContainer -Name $containerName -Context $destContext

$blob = Start-AzureStorageBlobCopy -srcUri $srcUri `
                                   -DestContainer $containerName `
                                   -DestBlob "testcopy1.vhd" `
                                   -DestContext $destContext   
                                    
$blob | Get-AzureStorageBlobCopyState 

Enhanced Security -AdminUserName is required for Windows (Breaking Change)

In order to protect you from unwanted attacks from connections attempting to use the dictionary on your password, we have made it mandatory to supply a username.
This change affects the New-AzureQuickVM and the Add-AzureProvisioningConfig cmdlets used for VM creation. Each will have a new –AdminUserName parameter that is now required.
Make sure you can remember it but do not use obvious names like Administrator or Admin.

High Memory Virtual Machine Support

The latest version of the WA PowerShell Cmdlets now support the new higher memory SKU sizes of A6 and A7 for larger workloads. For more information about Windows Azure compute sizes see the following: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/details/virtual-machines/.

Managing Availability Sets on Deployed VMs

We have also added the ability to specify availability set configuration for groups of virtual machines for highly available configurations. Previously, this could only be set at deployment time or post deployment from the Windows Azure Management Portal. For more information on availability sets see the following article:
http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/manage/windows/common-tasks/manage-vm-availability/

Get-AzureVM -ServiceName "mywebsite" | Where {$_.Name -like "*web*"} | 
    Set-AzureAvailabilitySet -AvailabilitySetName "wfe-av-set" |
    Update-AzureVM

Wrapping Up

I hope you are excited about the new features in the Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets. If you would like to try this yourself you will need a subscription, to download the WA PowerShell Cmdlets and a short read on getting started.

Thanks!
Michael Washam
Senior Program Manager – Windows Azure