This is part 3 of a series.

• Managing Tracing with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Managing Performance Counters with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Viewing your diagnostic settings with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Managing Windows Event Logs with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Managing Log Files with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0

Here is a handy helper function to help you view what diagnostics settings are currently configured for your Windows Azure service.

(Tip: I add all of these helper functions to a PowerShell Module (.psm1) script, export functions and variables and include it in my other scripts)

Just as in the other articles you will need to add the PowerShell Snapin (or module):

 
  Add-PsSnapin WAPPSCmdlets 

Ditto, I have this handy initialization block and helper function GetDiagRoles:

Initialization and Helper Function

 
  $storageAccountName = "YourStorageAccountName" 
  $storageAccountKey = "YourStorageAccountKey" 
  $deploymentSlot = "Production" 
  $serviceName = "YourHostedService" 
  $subscriptionId = "YourSubscriptionId" 
  # Thumbprint for your cert goes below 
  $mgmtCert = Get-Item cert:\CurrentUser\My\D7BECD4D63EBAF86023BB4F1A5FBF5C2C924902A 

  function GetDiagRoles { 
    Get-HostedService -ServiceName $serviceName -SubscriptionId $subscriptionId -Certificate $mgmtCert | ` 
        Get-Deployment -Slot $deploymentslot | ` 
        Get-DiagnosticAwareRoles -StorageAccountName $storageAccountName -StorageAccountKey $storageAccountKey 
   } 

PrintDiagnosticSettings Helper Function

 
function PrintDiagnosticSettings
{
      $input | foreach {
      $RoleObject = $_
      $RoleObject | Get-DiagnosticAwareRoleInstances | 
      foreach {
          $roleinstance = $_
          write-host ""
          write-host -BackgroundColor DarkBlue -ForegroundColor White "Retrieving Diagnostic Settings for RoleInstance: " $roleinstance
          
          # Diagnostics Configuration for Logs
          $diagConfig = $RoleObject | Get-DiagnosticConfiguration -BufferName Logs -InstanceId $roleinstance
          write-host -BackgroundColor DarkGreen -ForegroundColor White "Windows Azure Logs - BufferQuota (MB): " $diagConfig.BufferQuotaInMB " LogLevel:" $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferLogLevelFilter " Scheduled Transfer to Storage: " $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferPeriod.ToString()
          write-host ""
          
          # Diagnostics Configuration for Diagnostic Infrastructure Logs
          $diagConfig = $RoleObject | Get-DiagnosticConfiguration -BufferName DiagnosticInfrastructureLogs -InstanceId $roleinstance
          write-host -BackgroundColor DarkGreen -ForegroundColor White "Diagnostic Infrastructure Logs - BufferQuota (MB): " $diagConfig.BufferQuotaInMB " LogLevel:" $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferLogLevelFilter " Scheduled Transfer to Storage: " $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferPeriod.ToString()
          write-host ""
          
          # Diagnostics Configuration for Performance Counters          
          $diagConfig = $RoleObject | Get-DiagnosticConfiguration -BufferName PerformanceCounters -InstanceId $roleinstance
          write-host -BackgroundColor DarkGreen -ForegroundColor White "Performance Counters - BufferQuota (MB): " $diagConfig.BufferQuotaInMB " Scheduled Transfer to Storage: " $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferPeriod.ToString()
          $diagConfig.DataSources | foreach {
            $CounterSpecifier = $_.CounterSpecifier
            $SampleRate = $_.SampleRate
            write-host "  Counter: " $CounterSpecifier " SampleRate: " $SampleRate
          }
          write-host ""
          
          # Diagnostics Configuration for Windows Event Logs          
          $diagConfig = $RoleObject | Get-DiagnosticConfiguration -BufferName WindowsEventLogs -InstanceId $roleinstance
          write-host -BackgroundColor DarkGreen -ForegroundColor White "Windows Event Logs - BufferQuota (MB): " $diagConfig.BufferQuotaInMB " LogLevel:" $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferLogLevelFilter  " Scheduled Transfer to Storage: " $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferPeriod.ToString()
          $diagConfig.DataSources | foreach {
            $logName = $_.ToString()
            write-host " Log Name: " $logName
          }
          write-host ""
          
          # Diagnostics Configuration for Directories          
          $diagConfig = $RoleObject | Get-DiagnosticConfiguration -BufferName Directories -InstanceId $roleinstance
          write-host -BackgroundColor DarkGreen -ForegroundColor White "Directories - BufferQuota (MB): " $diagConfig.BufferQuotaInMB " Scheduled Transfer to Storage: " $diagConfig.ScheduledTransferPeriod.ToString()
          $diagConfig.DataSources | foreach {
            $container = $_.Container
            $path = $_.Path
            write-host "  Path: " $path " Container: " $container " Quota (MB): " $diagConfig.BufferQuotaInMB 
          }
      }
    }
}

Usage

 
  GetDiagRoles | PrintDiagnosticSettings

Output Example

This is part 4 of a series

• Managing Tracing with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Managing Performance Counters with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Viewing your diagnostic settings with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Managing Windows Event Logs with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0
• Managing Log Files with Windows Azure PowerShell Cmdlets 2.0

In this example I’m going to show you how you can easily configure Windows Azure Diagnostics to transfer over events from the Windows Event Log on your roles.

Just as in the other articles you will need to add the PowerShell Snapin (or module):

 
  Add-PsSnapin WAPPSCmdlets 

Ditto, I have this handy initialization block and helper function GetDiagRoles:

Initialization and Helper Function

 

 $storageAccountName = "YourStorageAccountName" 
 $storageAccountKey = "YourStorageAccountKey" 
 $deploymentSlot = "Production" 
 $serviceName = "YourHostedService" 
 $subscriptionId = "YourSubscriptionId" 
 # Thumbprint for your cert goes below
 $mgmtCert = Get-Item cert:\CurrentUser\My\D7BECD4D63EBAF86023BB4F1A5FBF5C2C924902A 
 

 function GetDiagRoles { 
   Get-HostedService -ServiceName $serviceName -SubscriptionId $subscriptionId -Certificate $cert | ` 
   Get-Deployment -Slot $deploymentslot | ` 
   Get-DiagnosticAwareRoles -StorageAccountName $storageAccount -StorageAccountKey $storageKey 
 }
 

Once initialized, simple create an array of strings telling the diagnostics systems what event logs to capture.

(Tip: The datasources are actually XPath queries which can be filtered to a very granural level if needed: Example).

Configuring Windows Event Logs

 
  GetDiagRoles | foreach {
    $eventLogs = new-object string[] 2
    $eventLogs[0] = "Application!*"
    $eventLogs[1] = "System!*"
    $_ | Set-WAEventLog -EventLogs $eventLogs -loglevel Error -TransferPeriod 15
	
  }

How to retrieve the data? Once the diagnostic system has had time to transfer any Windows Event logs to storage it’s as simple as the following examples:

 
# Dump out all event logs in storage to the console
GetDiagRoles | Get-WAEventLog 

 
# Dump all event logs in storage that 
# have faulting in the message to the console
GetdiagRoles | foreach { 
  $_ | Get-WAEventLog | Where { $_.Description -like "*faulting*" }
}

 
# Save all windows event logs to the file system (as .csv)
GetdiagRoles | foreach { 
  $FileName = "c:\DiagData\" + $_.RoleName + "eventlogs.csv"
  $_ | Get-WAEventLog -LocalPath $FileName
}

Of course there are -From and -To arguments for all of the Get-* diagnostic cmdlets so you can filter by certain time ranges etc.
A few other goodies we have added are the ability to clear your diagnostic settings (reset them to none) and also the ability to clean out your diagnostic storage.

# Clear all settings for the Windows Azure Log
GetDiagRoles | foreach {
  $_ | Set-WAEventLog -Clear
}

# Clear all data for the Windows Event Log
Clear-WAEventLog -StorageAccountKey $key -StorageAccountName $name