Creating a VM in Azure with Powershell core in Linux

This article will describe how a virtual machine in Azure from a command line in Linux. Powershell core will be used and I have tested this procedure using the Linux distribution MX-17 Horizon. First, we will update the package list for APT (Advanced Packaging Tool), get the latest versions of cURL and apt-transport-https and add the GPG key for the Microsoft repository for Powershell core. Then APT is once more updated and the package powershell is installed. The following script works on Debian-based distributions:

 sudo apt-get install 
 sudo apt-get install curl apt-transport-https
 curl https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc | sudo apt-key add -
 
 sudo sh -c 'echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/microsoft-debian-jessie-prod jessie main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/microsoft.list'

 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install -y powershell 
 

On my system however, I need to make use of Snap packages. This is because MX-Horizon fails to install powershell due to restrictions on libssl1.0 and libicu52. Anyways this route let me start up Powershell on MX-17 Horizon:

 sudo apt-get install snapd
 sudo snap install powershell-preview --classic
 sudo snap run powershell-preview 
 

Logging into Azure RM account

Running powershell-preview allows you to both run Powershell commands such as Get-ChildItem ("ls") and Unix tools such as ls (!) from the Powershell command line. We will first install the Powershell module AzureRM.NetCore inside the Powershell session, which is running.

 Install-Module AzureRM.Netcore
 Get-Command -Module AzureRM.Compute.Netcore
 

The last command is executed to check that the Powershell module is available. Type [Y] to allow the module installation in the first step. Next off, logging into the Azure Resource Manager. Type the following command in Powershell core:

 Login-AzureRMAccount
 

Running this command will prompt a code and tell you to open up a browser window and log on to: https://microsoft.com/devicelogin Then you log in to your Azure account and if you are successfully logged in, your Powershell core session is authenticated and you can access your Azure account and its resources!

Creating the Virtual machine in Azure

Creating the virtual machine is done in several steps. The script below is to be saved into a Powershell script file, forexample AzureVmCreate.ps1. There are many steps involved into establishing an installation of a VM in Azure. We will in this sample set up all the necessities to get an Ubuntu Server LTS. If you already have got for example a resource group in Azure, the script below can use this resource group instead of creating a new one. The list of steps are as follows to create a Linux VM in Azure:

• Create a resource group
• Create a subnet config
• Create a virtual network, set it up with the subnet config
• Create a public IP
• Create a security rule config to allow port 22 (SSH)
• Create a network security group nsg and add in the security rule config
• Create a network interface card nic and associate it with the public ip and the nsg
• Create a VM config and set the operating system, OS image and nic
• Create a VM config's SHH public key config
• Create a VM - Virtual Machine in Azure !

param([string]$resourceGroupName,
       [string]$resourceGroupLocation,
       [string]$vmComputerName,
       [string]$vmUser, 
       [string]$vmUserPassword,
       [string]$virtualNetworkName)
#Write-Host $resourceGroupName
#Write-Host $resourceGroupLocation
#Write-Host $vmComputerName
#Write-Host $vmUser
#Write-Host $vmUserPassword

# Definer user name and blank password
$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString ' ' -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ("azureuser", $securePassword)

New-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name $resourceGroupName -Location $resourceGroupLocation 

$subnetConfig = New-AzureRmVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig -Name default -AddressPrefix 10.0.0.0/24  

$virtualNetwork = New-AzureRMVirtualNetwork -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name `
$virtualNetworkName -AddressPrefix 10.0.0.0/16 -Location $resourceGroupLocation `
-Subnet $subnetConfig

Write-Host "Subnet id: " $virtualNetwork.Subnets[0].Id

# Create a public IP address and specify a DNS name
$pip = New-AzureRmPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Location $resourceGroupLocation `
  -Name "mypublicdns$(Get-Random)" -AllocationMethod Static -IdleTimeoutInMinutes 4

# Create an inbound network security group rule for port 22
$nsgRuleSSH = New-AzureRmNetworkSecurityRuleConfig -Name myNetworkSecurityGroupRuleSSH  -Protocol Tcp `
  -Direction Inbound -Priority 1000 -SourceAddressPrefix * -SourcePortRange * -DestinationAddressPrefix * `
  -DestinationPortRange 22 -Access Allow

# Create a network security group
$nsg = New-AzureRmNetworkSecurityGroup -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Location $resourceGroupLocation `
  -Name myNetworkSecurityGroup -SecurityRules $nsgRuleSSH

# Create a virtual network card and associate with public IP address and NSG
$nic = New-AzureRmNetworkInterface -Name myNic -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Location $resourceGroupLocation `
  -SubnetId $virtualNetwork.Subnets[0].Id -PublicIpAddressId $pip.Id -NetworkSecurityGroupId $nsg.Id


# Create a virtual machine configuration
$vmConfig = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName $vmComputerName -VMSize Standard_D1 | `
Set-AzureRmVMOperatingSystem -Linux -ComputerName $vmComputerName -Credential $cred -DisablePasswordAuthentication | `
Set-AzureRmVMSourceImage -PublisherName Canonical -Offer UbuntuServer -Skus 14.04.2-LTS -Version latest | `
Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface -Id $nic.Id


# Configure SSH Keys
$sshPublicKey = Get-Content "$HOME/.ssh/id_rsa.pub"
Add-AzureRmVMSshPublicKey -VM $vmconfig -KeyData $sshPublicKey -Path "/home/azureuser/.ssh/authorized_keys"

# Create a virtual machine
New-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Location $resourceGroupLocation -VM $vmConfig

 

We can then instantiate a new VM in Azure running the script above, which will create a standard D1 blade server in Azure with approx. 3,5 GB RAM and 30 GB disk space with Ubuntu Server LTS latest from the publisher Canonical by calling this script like for example: ./AzureVmCreate.ps1 -resourceGroupName "SomeResourceGroup" -resourceGroupLocation "northcentralus" "SomeVmComputer" -vmUser "adminUser" -password "s0m3CoolPassw0rkzzD" -virtualNetworkName "SomeVirtualNetwork" After the VM is created, which for me took about 5 minutes time before the VM was up and running in Azure, you can access it by visiting the Azure portal at https://portal.azure.com You can then take notice of the public IP adress that the script in this article created and connect with : ssh azureuser@ip_address_to_linux_VM_you_just_created_in_Azure! The following images shows me logging into the Ubuntu Server LTS Virtual Machine that was created with the Powershell core script in this article!

A complete list of available Linux images can be seen in the Azure marketplace or in the Microsoft Docs: Linux VMs in Azure overview After installation, you can run the following cmdlet to clean up the resource group and all its resources, including the VM you created for testing.

  Remove-AzureRmResourceGroup -Name myResourceGroup
 

Detect USB drives in a WPF application

We can use the class System.IO.DriveInfo to retrieve all the drives on the system and look for drives where the DriveType is Removable. In addition, the removable drive (USB usually) must be ready, which is accessible as the property IsReady. First off, we define a provider to retrieve the removable drives:

    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.IO;
    using System.Linq;

    namespace TestPopWpfWindow
    {

    public static class UsbDriveListProvider
    {


        public static IEnumerable<DriveInfo> GetAllRemovableDrives()
        {
            var driveInfos = DriveInfo.GetDrives().AsEnumerable();
            driveInfos = driveInfos.Where(drive => drive.DriveType == DriveType.Removable);
            return driveInfos;
        }

    }
}

Let us use the MVVM pattern also, so we define a ViewModelbase class, implementing INotifyPropertyChanged.

using System.ComponentModel;

namespace TestPopWpfWindow
{

    public class ViewModelBase : INotifyPropertyChanged
    {

        public event PropertyChangedEventHandler PropertyChanged;

        public void RaisePropertyChanged(string propertyName)
        {
            if (PropertyChanged != null)
                PropertyChanged(this, new PropertyChangedEventArgs(propertyName));
        }


    }
}

It is also handy to have an implemetation of ICommand:

    using System;
    using System.Windows.Input;

    namespace TestPopWpfWindow
    {

        public class RelayCommand : ICommand
        {

            private Predicate<object> _canExecute;

            private Action<object> _execute;  


            public RelayCommand(Predicate<object> canExecute, Action<object> execute)
            {
                _canExecute = canExecute;
                _execute = execute;
            }

            public bool CanExecute(object parameter)
            {
                return _canExecute(parameter); 
            }

            public event EventHandler CanExecuteChanged;

            public void Execute(object parameter)
            {
                _execute(parameter); 
            }

        }
    }

We also set the DataContext of MainWindow to an instance of a demo view model defined afterwards:

namespace TestPopWpfWindow
{

    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {

        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
            DataContext = new UsbDriveInfoDemoViewModel();
        }

    }
}

We then define the view model itself and use System.Management.ManagementEventWatcher to look for changes in the drives mounted onto the system.

  using System;
    using System.Collections.Generic;
    using System.Diagnostics;
    using System.IO;
    using System.Management;
    using System.Windows;
    using System.Windows.Input;

    namespace TestPopWpfWindow
    {

        public class UsbDriveInfoDemoViewModel : ViewModelBase, IDisposable
        {

            public UsbDriveInfoDemoViewModel()
            {
                DriveInfos = new List<DriveInfo>();
                ReloadDriveInfos();
                RegisterManagementEventWatching(); 
                TargetUsbDrive = @"E:<"; 
                AccessCommand = new RelayCommand(x => true, x => MessageBox.Show("Functionality executed."));
            }

            public int UsbDriveCount { get; set; }

            private string _targetUsbDrive;

            public string TargetUsbDrive
            {
                get { return _targetUsbDrive; }
                set
                {
                    if (_targetUsbDrive != value)
                    {
                        _targetUsbDrive = value; 
                        RaisePropertyChanged("TargetUsbDrive");
                        RaisePropertyChanged("DriveInfo");
                    }
                }
            }

            public ICommand AccessCommand { get; set; }

            private void ReloadDriveInfos()
            {
                var usbDrives = UsbDriveListProvider.GetAllRemovableDrives();

                Application.Current.Dispatcher.Invoke(() =>
                {
                    DriveInfos.Clear();

                    foreach (var usbDrive in usbDrives)
                    {
                        DriveInfos.Add(usbDrive);
                    }
                    UsbDriveCount = DriveInfos.Count;
                    RaisePropertyChanged("UsbDriveCount");
                    RaisePropertyChanged("DriveInfos");
                }); 
            }

            public List<DriveInfo> DriveInfos { get; set; }

            private ManagementEventWatcher _watcher;

            private void RegisterManagementEventWatching()
            {
                _watcher = new ManagementEventWatcher();
                var query = new WqlEventQuery("SELECT * FROM Win32_VolumeChangeEvent");
                _watcher.EventArrived += watcher_EventArrived;
                _watcher.Query = query;
                _watcher.Start();
            }

            private void watcher_EventArrived(object sender, EventArrivedEventArgs e)
            {
                Debug.WriteLine(e.NewEvent);
                ReloadDriveInfos();
            }



            public void Dispose()
            {
                if (_watcher != null)
                {
                    _watcher.Stop();
                    _watcher.EventArrived -= watcher_EventArrived;
                }
            }

        }

    }

We also define a WPF multi-converter next to enable the button:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Globalization;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Data;

namespace TestPopWpfWindow
{

    public class UsbDriveAvailableEnablerConverter : IMultiValueConverter
    {

        public object Convert(object[] values, Type targetType, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
        {
            if (values == null || values.Count() != 2)
                return false;

            var driveInfos = values[1] as List<DriveInfo>;
            var targetDrive = values[0] as string; 
            if (driveInfos == null || !driveInfos.Any() || string.IsNullOrEmpty(targetDrive))
                return false;
            return driveInfos.Any(d => d.IsReady && d.Name == targetDrive);
        }




        public object[] ConvertBack(object value, Type[] targetTypes, object parameter, CultureInfo culture)
        {
            throw new NotImplementedException();
        }
    }
}

And we define a GUI to test this code:

<Window x:Class="TestPopWpfWindow.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:local="clr-namespace:TestPopWpfWindow"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">

    <Window.Resources>

        <Style x:Key="usbLabel" TargetType="Label">
            <Style.Triggers>
                <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding IsReady}" Value="False">
                    <Setter Property="Background" Value="Gray"></Setter>
                </DataTrigger>
                <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding IsReady}" Value="True">
                    <Setter Property="Background" Value="Green"></Setter>
                </DataTrigger>
            </Style.Triggers>
        </Style>

        <local:UsbDriveAvailableEnablerConverter x:Key="usbDriveAvailableEnablerConverter"></local:UsbDriveAvailableEnablerConverter>

    </Window.Resources>


    <Grid>
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"></RowDefinition>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"></RowDefinition>
            <RowDefinition Height="Auto"></RowDefinition>

        </Grid.RowDefinitions>

        <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
            <TextBlock Text="USB Drive-detector" FontWeight="DemiBold" HorizontalAlignment="Center" FontSize="14" Margin="2"></TextBlock>
            <TextBlock Text="Removable drives on the system" FontWeight="Normal" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="2"></TextBlock>
            <TextBlock Text="Drives detected:" FontWeight="Normal" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="2"></TextBlock>
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding UsbDriveCount, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}" FontWeight="Normal" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Margin="2"></TextBlock>

            <ItemsControl Grid.Row="0" ItemsSource="{Binding DriveInfos, UpdateSourceTrigger=PropertyChanged}"
                          Width="100" BorderBrush="Black" BorderThickness="1">
                <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
                    <DataTemplate>
                        <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">
                            <Label Style="{StaticResource usbLabel}" Width="32" Height="32" FontSize="18" Foreground="White" Content="{Binding Name}">
                            </Label>
                        </StackPanel>

                    </DataTemplate>
                </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
            </ItemsControl>
        </StackPanel>

        <Button Grid.Row="1" Height="24" Width="130" VerticalAlignment="Top" Margin="10" Content="Access functionality" Command="{Binding AccessCommand}">
            <Button.IsEnabled>
                <MultiBinding Converter="{StaticResource usbDriveAvailableEnablerConverter}">
                    <MultiBinding.Bindings>
                        <Binding Path="TargetUsbDrive"></Binding>
                        <Binding Path="DriveInfos"></Binding>
                    </MultiBinding.Bindings>
                </MultiBinding>
            </Button.IsEnabled>
        </Button>

        <StackPanel Grid.Row="2" Orientation="Horizontal" HorizontalAlignment="Center">
            <TextBlock Margin="2" Text="Target this USB-drive:"></TextBlock>
            <TextBox Margin="2" Text="{Binding TargetUsbDrive, UpdateSourceTrigger=LostFocus}" Width="100"></TextBox>
        </StackPanel>

    </Grid>

</Window>

I have now provided the Visual Studio 2013 solution with the code above available for download here:

Download VS 2013 Solution with source code above

Explore contents of a running container in Docker

This is a short tip how to explorer the contents of a running container in Docker.



Get Docker for windows from here: Docker for Windows First off, we can list our containers with the following command:

docker container ls
Note the CONTAINER ID value. Use this to explore the contents of the running container:

docker exec -it 231 bash

Note that in this example I just have to type the necessary part of the Guid of the CONTAINER ID to discern it from others and issue an exec command with the parameters -it (interactive and pseudo tty session) followed with bash. From now on, I can explore the container easily: ls -al The following image sums this up:

Another cool tip, how about installing a new nginx web server on port 81 on your Windows Dev Box? Simple!

docker run --detach publish 81:80 nginx

And the following command pulls a windowsservercore docker image (10,7 GB size) and starts it up and gives you a pseudo-terminal which is interactive:

docker run -it microsoft/windowsservercore