Monthly Archive: February 2016
Techdiction > 2016 > February
Marcus
25th February 2016
The Problem Conflict between software development teams and IT operations is familiar to many of us. As IT professionals we are often faced with support tickets for applications that are: Sluggish Don’t install Randomly stop working This could happen randomly, or more commonly occurs after an application update. Have you ever escalated an issue to the application developers or vendor and had a reply the lines of “You have installed it incorrectly” or “Your hardware is incorrectly configured? It a situation that I have been in a number of times in the past and the resolution to the conflict is often a…
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Marcus
12th February 2016
You may have seen my previous posts detailing how to enable WinRM over HTTPS on an Azure Resource Manager VM. I have now collated all the different bits of script and creates a single PowerShell function. The function is called Configure-WinRMHTTPS, and is as follows: Once the function is loaded you must login to Azure. Then the function can be executed: My next post will cover submitting the function to the PowerShell Gallery.
Marcus
12th February 2016
Following on from my previous two posts regarding WinRM over HTTPS the next stage was to automate the steps that needed to be carried out inside the Azure VM. In my original post I had a mix of PowerShell, command prompt and copy and paste! Andy Slowey provided me with the following PowerShell to optimize the WinRM over HTTPS server side configuration: In search of going one better, I decided to find a way to avoid the need to use RDP so that the whole process could be automated. Scripts can be executed within an Azure VM without logging into…
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Marcus
11th February 2016
My last post, http://www.techdiction.com/2016/02/11/configuring-winrm-over-https-to-enable-powershell-remoting/, covered enabling WinRM over HTTPS on an Azure VM. After forwarding the steps to colleagues it was pointed out that some of the steps could be simplified with some PowerShell. My next couple of posts will cover how different parts of my initial process could be automated, starting with creation of the network security group rule. I want to say thanks to Andy Slowey, Technology Specialist at Microsoft Research who suggested some improvements, carried out some testing and ironed out some of the bugs in my PowerShell. The PowerShell below creates the network security group rule for…
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Marcus
11th February 2016
Note: After making this post I created some additional posts describing how to automate this process further using PowerShell. The final post in the series is here: http://www.techdiction.com/2016/02/12/powershell-function-to-enable-winrm-over-https-on-an-azure-resource-manager-vm/ which includes a function to carry out the below without the need to log onto the server or portal. PowerShell remoting allows machines to be remotely managed using PowerShell. PowerShell remoting is commonly used with virtual machines running on Azure. When we create a classic/service manager VM on Azure it is automatically configured with a WinRM endpoint so that we can connect using PowerShell remoting. However, if we create a VM using Resource…
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Marcus
4th February 2016
It is possible to connect Azure App Services that are on Standard and Premium plans to a virtual network using a point to site VPN. Unfortunately although it is reasonably straightforward in the portal there isn’t much documentation around on how to do this using PowerShell. In response to a forum post, https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/2417fc64-e8d3-4b15-a493-7524f7d4961e/join-a-web-app-to-a-vpn-in-azure-through-powershell-script I created the connection with some help from https://resources.azure.com/. The solution isn’t a work of art but hopefully enough to put people on the right track. First you need an existing VNet with P2S configured. If you haven’t done that already I suggest reading my previous post – http://www.techdiction.com/2016/01/12/creating-a-point-to-site-vpn-connection-on-an-azure-resource-manager-virtual-network/ Then use…
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