Microsoft Lists workshop – now available on-demand

by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Go further with Microsoft Lists. You know you want to. And now you can – on-demand.

We recently delivered five live workshops across multiple time zones – and we learned a lot. We’ve refined the content based on feedback and tightened up a few additional things – mindful of your time and ease of consumption.

The result: We’ve got a great two-part, on-demand workshop – two videos wrapped in a single page with additional resources. Dig in and learn how you and your team can best utilize Microsoft Lists. We teach you how to use and create views, configure conditional formatting, adjust forms, use rules, and more. Plus, we highlight no-code and low-code solutions leveraging integrated tools from the Power Platform. You’ll also find materials to deliver the Lists workshop to your organization (PowerPoint, speaker notes, demo materials).

Jump into the Microsoft Lists on-demand workshop now! [for ease of copy/pasting and sharing with others: https://aka.ms/MSLists/workshop]

What you’ll find on the Lists workshop page…

Watch the two-part Microsoft Lists workshop on-demand (https://aka.ms/MSLists/workshop).

Microsoft Lists workshop, part 1: “Creating and collaborating”

We’ll start with the basics – clarity on what Lists is and what it isn’t – including addressing numerous frequently asked questions (FAQs). We’ll then focus on a variety of ways to create lists from the new Lists home page and from within Microsoft Teams – inclusive of using new ready-made templates. Lots of demos – lots of insight.

Microsoft Lists workshop, part 2: “Make Lists work for you”

Continuing from part 1, we turn to making lists work for you using filters, views, rules, and formatting. We end with a look at how Lists integrates with the Power Platform to take lists even further with custom forms, flows and reporting. We wrap up with the roadmap to share what’s coming next for Microsoft Lists.

BONUS | Host a Microsoft Lists workshop within your organization

Interested in conducting a Microsoft Lists training within your organization – to kick off a pilot or help ramp up your future list pros? We’ve provided a few helpful, downloadable resources to assist your internal Lists evangelism (commonly delivered in 3-4 hours) – PowerPoint with speaker notes and demo suggestions + content for demo’ing creating a list from Excel.

Jump into the Microsoft Lists on-demand workshop now! (if you haven’t yet already)

We, too, have updated our Lists resource and adoption centers – our core public destinations to learn and consume all things Microsfot Lists (blogs, videos, demos, podcasts, deployment resources, and more). Let us know what you think. 

Happy workshopping!

Thank you, Mark Kashman – senior product manager (Microsoft Lists)

P.S. did you jump into the Microsoft Lists on-demand workshop yet? Just checking ;)

Configuring a GlusterFS using Azure Shared Disks on Ubuntu Linux

by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

In this article I’ll show you how to create a redundtant storage pool using GlusterFS and Azure Shared Disks. GlusterFS is a network-attached storage filesystem that allows you to pool storage resources of multiple machines. Azure shared disks is a new feature for Azure managed disks that allows you to attach a managed disk to multiple virtual machines (VMs) simultaneously. Please note that enabling shared disks is only available to a subset of disk types. Currently only ultra disks and premium SSDs can enable shared disks. Check if the VM type you are planning to use support ultra or premium disks.

Our setup will consist in:

• An Azure Resource Group containing the resources
  
  
  
  • An Azure VNET and a Subnet
  
  
  • An Availability Set into a Proximity Placement Group
  
  
  • 2 Linux VMs (Ubuntu 18.04)
    
    
    
    • 2 Public IPs (one for each VM)
    
    
    • 2 Network Security Groups (1 per VM Network Interface Card)
    
    
    
    
  
  
  • A Shared Data Disk attached to the both VMs
  
  
  
  

I’ll be using the Azure Cloud Shell once is fully integrated to Azure and with all modules I need already installed.

Create SSH key pair

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096

Create a resource group

New-AzResourceGroup -Name “myResourceGroup” -Location “EastUS”

Create virtual network resources

Create a subnet configuration

$subnetConfig = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig `

  -Name “mySubnet” `

  -AddressPrefix 192.168.1.0/24

Create a virtual network

$vnet = New-AzVirtualNetwork `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location “EastUS” `

  -Name “myVNET” `

  -AddressPrefix 192.168.0.0/16 `

  -Subnet $subnetConfig

Create a public IP address for the VM01

$pip01 = New-AzPublicIpAddress `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location “EastUS” `

  -AllocationMethod Static `

  -IdleTimeoutInMinutes 4 `

  -Name “mypublicip01”

Create a public IP address for the VM02

$pip02 = New-AzPublicIpAddress `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location “EastUS” `

  -AllocationMethod Static `

  -IdleTimeoutInMinutes 4 `

  -Name “mypublicip02”

Create an inbound network security group rule for port 22

$nsgRuleSSH = New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig `

  -Name “myNetworkSecurityGroupRuleSSH”  `

  -Protocol “Tcp” `

  -Direction “Inbound” `

  -Priority 1000 `

  -SourceAddressPrefix * `

  -SourcePortRange * `

  -DestinationAddressPrefix * `

  -DestinationPortRange 22 `

  -Access “Allow”

Create a network security group for the VM01

$nsg = New-AzNetworkSecurityGroup `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location “EastUS” `

  -Name “myNetworkSecurityGroup01” `

  -SecurityRules $nsgRuleSSH

Create a network security group for the VM02

$nsg = New-AzNetworkSecurityGroup `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location “EastUS” `

  -Name “myNetworkSecurityGroup02” `

  -SecurityRules $nsgRuleSSH

Create a virtual network card for VM01 and associate with public IP address and NSG

$nic01 = New-AzNetworkInterface `

  -Name “myNic01” `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location “EastUS” `

  -SubnetId $vnet.Subnets[0].Id `

  -PublicIpAddressId $pip01.Id `

  -NetworkSecurityGroupId $nsg.Id

Create a virtual network card for VM02 and associate with public IP address and NSG

$nic02 = New-AzNetworkInterface `

  -Name “myNic02” `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location “EastUS” `

  -SubnetId $vnet.Subnets[0].Id `

  -PublicIpAddressId $pip02.Id `

  -NetworkSecurityGroupId $nsg.Id

Create availability set for the virtual machines.

$set = @{

    Name = ‘myAvSet’

    ResourceGroupName = ‘myResourceGroup’

    Location = ‘eastus’

    Sku = ‘Aligned’

    PlatformFaultDomainCount = ‘2’

    PlatformUpdateDomainCount =  ‘2’

}

$avs = New-AzAvailabilitySet @set

Create the first virtual machine (myVM01)

Define a credential object

$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString ‘ ‘ -AsPlainText -Force

$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential (“azureuser”, $securePassword)

Create a virtual machine configuration

$vmConfig = New-AzVMConfig `

  -AvailabilitySetId $avs.Id `

  -VMName “myVM01” `

  -VMSize “Standard_D4s_v3” | `

Set-AzVMOperatingSystem `

  -Linux `

  -ComputerName “myVM01” `

  -Credential $cred `

  -DisablePasswordAuthentication | `

Set-AzVMSourceImage `

  -PublisherName “Canonical” `

  -Offer “UbuntuServer” `

  -Skus “18.04-LTS” `

  -Version “latest” | `

Add-AzVMNetworkInterface `

  -Id $nic01.Id

Configure the SSH key

$sshPublicKey = cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Add-AzVMSshPublicKey `

  -VM $vmconfig `

  -KeyData $sshPublicKey `

  -Path “/home/azureuser/.ssh/authorized_keys”

Create the VM

New-AzVM `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location eastus -VM $vmConfig

Create the second virtual machine (myVM02)

Define a credential object

$securePassword = ConvertTo-SecureString ‘ ‘ -AsPlainText -Force

$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential (“azureuser”, $securePassword)

Create a virtual machine configuration

$vmConfig = New-AzVMConfig `

  -AvailabilitySetId $avs.Id `

  -VMName “myVM02” `

  -VMSize “Standard_D4s_v3” | `

Set-AzVMOperatingSystem `

  -Linux `

  -ComputerName “myVM02” `

  -Credential $cred `

  -DisablePasswordAuthentication | `

Set-AzVMSourceImage `

  -PublisherName “Canonical” `

  -Offer “UbuntuServer” `

  -Skus “18.04-LTS” `

  -Version “latest” | `

Add-AzVMNetworkInterface `

  -Id $nic02.Id

Configure the SSH key

$sshPublicKey = cat ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Add-AzVMSshPublicKey `

  -VM $vmconfig `

  -KeyData $sshPublicKey `

  -Path “/home/azureuser/.ssh/authorized_keys”

Create the VM

New-AzVM `

  -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” `

  -Location eastus -VM $vmConfig

Create a Shared Data Disk

$dataDiskConfig = New-AzDiskConfig -Location ‘EastUS’ -DiskSizeGB 1024 -AccountType Premium_LRS -CreateOption Empty -MaxSharesCount 2

New-AzDisk -ResourceGroupName ‘myResourceGroup’ -DiskName ‘mySharedDisk’ -Disk $dataDiskConfig

Attach the Data Disk to VM01

$dataDisk = Get-AzDisk -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” -DiskName “mySharedDisk”

$VirtualMachine = Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” -Name “myVM01”

Add-AzVMDataDisk -VM $VirtualMachine -Name “mySharedDisk” -CreateOption Attach -ManagedDiskId $dataDisk.Id -Lun 0

update-AzVm -VM $VirtualMachine -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup”

Attach the Data Disk to VM02

$dataDisk = Get-AzDisk -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” -DiskName “mySharedDisk”

$VirtualMachine = Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” -Name “myVM02”

Add-AzVMDataDisk -VM $VirtualMachine -Name “mySharedDisk” -CreateOption Attach -ManagedDiskId $dataDisk.Id -Lun 0

update-AzVm -VM $VirtualMachine -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup”

Create a proximity placement group

$ppg = New-AzProximityPlacementGroup -Location “EastUS” -Name “myPPG” -ResourceGroupName “myResourceGroup” -ProximityPlacementGroupType Standard

Move the existing availability set into a proximity placement group

$resourceGroup = “myResourceGroup”

$avSetName = “myAvSet”

$avSet = Get-AzAvailabilitySet -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $avSetName

$vmIds = $avSet.VirtualMachinesReferences

foreach ($vmId in $vmIDs){

    $string = $vmID.Id.Split(“/”)

    $vmName = $string[8]

    Stop-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName -Force

    } 

$ppg = Get-AzProximityPlacementGroup -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup -Name myPPG

Update-AzAvailabilitySet -AvailabilitySet $avSet -ProximityPlacementGroupId $ppg.Id

foreach ($vmId in $vmIDs){

    $string = $vmID.Id.Split(“/”)

    $vmName = $string[8]

    Start-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $vmName

    }

Configure the Disk on Linux VM01

ssh azureuser@13.82.29.9

Find the disk

lsblk -o NAME,HCTL,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT | grep -i “sd”

Partition a new disk

sudo parted /dev/sdb –script mklabel gpt mkpart xfspart xfs 0% 100%

sudo mkfs.xfs /dev/sdb1

sudo partprobe /dev/sdb1

Mount the disk

sudo mkdir /datadrive

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /datadrive

Ensure mounting during the boot

sudo blkid

The ouput should be something similar to:

/dev/sdc1: LABEL=”cloudimg-rootfs” UUID=”5a9997c3-aafd-46e9-954c-781f2b11fb68″ TYPE=”ext4″ PARTUUID=”cbc2fcb7-e40a-4fec-a370-51888c246f12″

/dev/sdc15: LABEL=”UEFI” UUID=”2FBA-C33A” TYPE=”vfat” PARTUUID=”53fbf8ed-db79-4c52-8e42-78dbf30ff35c”

/dev/sda1: UUID=”c62479eb-7c96-49a1-adef-4371d27509e6″ TYPE=”ext4″ PARTUUID=”a5bb6861-01″

/dev/sdb1: UUID=”f0b4e401-e9dc-472e-b9ca-3fa06a5b2e22″ TYPE=”xfs” PARTLABEL=”xfspart” PARTUUID=”af3ca4e5-cb38-4856-8791-bd6b650ba1b3″

/dev/sdc14: PARTUUID=”de01bd39-4bfe-4bc8-aff7-986e694f7972″

sudo nano /etc/fstab

use the UUID value for the /dev/sdb1 device. Change by the UUID from your case and add the following at the end of the file:

UUID=f0b4e401-e9dc-472e-b9ca-3fa06a5b2e22   /datadrive   xfs   defaults,nofail   1   2

Configure the Disk on Linux VM02

ssh azureuser@40.114.24.217

Find the disk

lsblk -o NAME,HCTL,SIZE,MOUNTPOINT | grep -i “sd”

Partition a new disk

As the disk already was partitioned on the VM01, we can skip this step now.

Mount the disk

sudo mkdir /datadrive

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /datadrive

Ensure mounting during the boot

sudo blkid

The ouput should be something similar to:

/dev/sdb1: LABEL=”cloudimg-rootfs” UUID=”5a9997c3-aafd-46e9-954c-781f2b11fb68″ TYPE=”ext4″ PARTUUID=”cbc2fcb7-e40a-4fec-a370-51888c246f12″

/dev/sdb15: LABEL=”UEFI” UUID=”2FBA-C33A” TYPE=”vfat” PARTUUID=”53fbf8ed-db79-4c52-8e42-78dbf30ff35c”

/dev/sdc1: UUID=”d1b59101-225e-48f4-8373-4f1a92a81607″ TYPE=”ext4″ PARTUUID=”b0218b4e-01″

/dev/sda1: UUID=”f0b4e401-e9dc-472e-b9ca-3fa06a5b2e22″ TYPE=”xfs” PARTLABEL=”xfspart” PARTUUID=”dda03810-f1f9-45a5-9613-08e9b5e89a32″

/dev/sdb14: PARTUUID=”de01bd39-4bfe-4bc8-aff7-986e694f7972″

sudo nano /etc/fstab

use the UUID value for the /dev/sda1 device. Change by the UUID from your case and add the following at the end of the file:

UUID=f0b4e401-e9dc-472e-b9ca-3fa06a5b2e22   /datadrive   xfs   defaults,nofail   1   2

Install GlusterFS on Linux VM01

Please note that in my case the IPs 192.168.1.4 and 192.168.1.5 are the private ip’s from VM01 and VM02. Add those configuration on the /etc/hosts.

sudo nano /etc/hosts

192.168.1.4 gluster1.local gluster1

192.168.1.5 gluster2.local gluster2

sudo apt update

sudo apt install software-properties-common

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gluster/glusterfs-7

sudo apt update

sudo apt install glusterfs-server

sudo systemctl status glusterd.service

Install GlusterFS on Linux VM02

Please note that the IPs 192.168.1.4 and 192.168.1.5 are the private ip’s from VM01 and VM02. Add those configuration on the /etc/hosts.

sudo nano /etc/hosts

192.168.1.4 gluster1.local gluster1

192.168.1.5 gluster2.local gluster2

sudo apt update

sudo apt install software-properties-common

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gluster/glusterfs-7

sudo apt update

sudo apt install glusterfs-server

sudo systemctl status glusterd.service

Configure GlusterFS on Linx VM01

sudo gluster peer probe gluster2

sudo gluster peer status

sudo gluster volume create sharedvolume replica 2 gluster1.local:/datadrive gluster2.local:/datadrive force

sudo gluster volume start sharedvolume

sudo gluster volume status

sudo apt install glusterfs-client

sudo mkdir /gluster-storage

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following at the end of the file:

gluster1.local:sharedvolume /gluster-storage glusterfs defaults,_netdev 0 0

sudo mount -a

Configure GlusterFS on Linx VM02

sudo gluster peer probe gluster1

sudo gluster peer status

sudo gluster volume status

sudo apt install glusterfs-client

sudo mkdir /gluster-storage

sudo nano /etc/fstab

Add the following at the end of the file:

gluster2.local:sharedvolume /gluster-storage glusterfs defaults,_netdev 0 0

sudo mount -a

Test

In one of the nodes, go to /gluster-storage and create some files:

ssh azureuser@myVM01

azureuser@myVM01:~# sudo touch /gluster-storage/file{1..10}

Then go to the another node and check those files:

ssh azureuser@myVM02

azureuser@myVM02:~# ls -l /gluster-storage

total 0

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file1

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file10

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file2

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file3

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file4

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file5

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file6

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file7

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file8

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file9

Now execute a shutdown on myVM02:

azureuser@myVM02:~# sudo init 0

Connection to 40.114.24.217 closed by remote host.

Connection to 40.114.24.217 closed.

Access myVM01 and you notice that you still with access to the files:

azureuser@myVM01:~$ ls -l /gluster-storage/

total 0

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file1

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file10

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file2

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file3

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file4

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file5

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file6

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file7

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file8

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file9

Now let’s create some new files:

azureuser@myVM01:~$ sudo touch /gluster-storage/new-file{1..10}

azureuser@myVM01:~$ sudo ls -l /gluster-storage/

total 0

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file1

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file10

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file2

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file3

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file4

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file5

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file6

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file7

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file8

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file9

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file1

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file10

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file2

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file3

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file4

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file5

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file6

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file7

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file8

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file9

Then just turn on the myVM02 and you will be able the see all files syncronized on myVM02:

azureuser@myVM02:~$ ls -l /gluster-storage/

total 0

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file1

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file10

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file2

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file3

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file4

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file5

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file6

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file7

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file8

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 19:48 file9

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file1

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file10

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file2

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file3

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file4

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file5

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file6

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file7

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file8

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 0 Apr  1 20:00 new-file9

As you can see the files was in sync and without any kind of data loss even in the case of one of the nodes was offline.

Implementing your own ELK Stack on Azure through CLI

by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Introduction

Some time ago I had to help a customer in a PoC over the implementation of ELK Stack (ElasticSearch, Logstash and Kibana) on Azure VMs using Azure CLI. Then here are all steps you should follow to implement something similar.

Please note you have different options to deploy and use ElasticSearch on Azure

Data Flow

The illustration below refers to the logical architecture implemented to prove the concept. This architecture includes an application server, the Azure Redis service, a server with Logstash, a server with ElasticSearch and a server with Kibana and Nginx installed.

DescrDescription of components

Application Server: To simulate an application server generating logs, a script was used that generates logs randomly. The source code for this script is available at https://github.com/bitsofinfo/log-generator. It was configured to generate the logs in /tmp/log-sample.log.

Filebeat: Agent installed on the application server and configured to send the generated logs to Azure Redis. Filebeat has the function of shipping the logs using the lumberjack protocol.

Azure Redis Service: Managed service for in-memory data storage. It was used because search engines can be an operational nightmare. Indexing can bring down a traditional cluster and data can end up being reindexed for a variety of reasons. Thus, the choice of Redis between the event source and parsing and processing is only to index/parse as fast as the nodes and databases involved can manipulate this data allowing it to be possible to extract directly from the flow of events instead to have events being inserted into the pipeline.

Logstash: Processes and indexes the logs by reading from Redis and submitting to ElasticSearch.

ElasticSearch: Stores logs

Kibana/Nginx: Web interface for searching and viewing the logs that are proxied by Nginx

Deployment

The deployment of the environment is done using Azure CLI commands in a shell script. In addition to serving as documentation about the services deployed, they are a good practice on IaC. In this demo I’ll be using Azure Cloud Shell once is fully integrated to Azure. Make sure to switch to Bash:

The script will perform the following steps:

1. Create the resource group


2. Create the Redis service


3. Create a VNET called myVnet with the prefix 10.0.0.0/16 and a subnet called mySubnet with the prefix 10.0.1.0/24


4. Create the Application server VM


5. Log Generator Installation/Configuration


6. Installation / Configuration of Filebeat


7. Filebeat Start


8. Create the ElasticSearch server VM


9. Configure NSG and allow access on port 9200 for subnet 10.0.1.0/24


10. Install Java


11. Install/Configure ElasticSearch


12. Start ElasticSearch


13. Create the Logstash server VM


14. Install/Configure Logstash


15. Start Logstash


16. Create the Kibana server VM


17. Configure NSG and allow access on port 80 to 0.0.0.0/0


18. Install/Configure Kibana and Nginx

Note that Linux User is set to elk. Public and private keys will be generated in ~/.ssh. To access the VMs run ssh -i ~/.ssh /id_rsa elk@ip

Script to setup ELK Stack

The script is available here. Just download then execute the following:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ricmmartins/elk-stack-azure/main/elk-stack-azure.sh
chmod a+x elk-stack-azure.sh
./elk-stack-azure.sh <resource group name> <location> <redis name>

After a few minutes the execution of the script will be completed, then you have just to finish the setup through Kibana interface.

Finishing the setup

To finish the setup, the next step is to connect to the public IP address of the Kibana/Nginx VM. Once connected, the home screen should look like this:

Then click to create Explore my own. In the next screen click on Discover

Now click on Create index pattern

On the next screen type logstash on the step 1 of 2, then click to Next step

On the step 2 of 2, point to @timestamp

Then click to Create index pattern

After a few seconds you will have this:

Click on Discover on the menu

Now you have access to all indexed logs and the messages generated by Log Generator:

Final notes

As mentioned earlier, this was done for a PoC purposes. If you want add some extra layer for security, you can restrict the access adding HTTP Basic Authentication for NGINX or restricting the access trough private IPs and a VPN.

How to create a VPN between Azure and AWS using only managed solutions

by Contributed | Jun 17, 2021 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

What if you can establish a connection between Azure and AWS using only managed solutions instead to have to use virtual machines? This is exactly what we’ll be covering on this article connecting AWS Virtual Private Gateway with the Azure VPN Gateway directly without worry to manage IaaS resources like virtual machines.

Below the draw of our lab:

Regarding the high availability, please note that on AWS, by default a VPN connection always will have 2 Public IPs, one per tunnel. On Azure it doesn’t happens by default and in this case you will be using Active/Passive from Azure side.

This means that we will be setting only one “node” from Azure VPN Gateway to establish two VPN connections with AWS. In case of a failure, the second node from Azure VPN Gateway will connect to AWS in a Active/Passive mode.

Configuring Azure

1. Crate a resource group on Azure to deploy the resources on that

Choose the subscription, the name and the region to be deployed:

2. Create a Virtual Network and a subnet

Define the subscription, resource group, name and region to be deployed:

Set the address space for the virtual network and for the subnet. Here I’m defining the virtual network address space to 172.10.0.0/16, changing the “default” subnet name to “subnet-01” and defining the subnet address range to 172.10.1.0/24:

3. Create the VPN Gateway

The Azure VPN Gateway is a resource composed of 2 or more VM’s that are deployed to a specific subnet called Gateway Subnet where the recommendation is to use a /27. He contain routing tables and run specific gateway services. Note that you can’t access those VM’s.

To create, go to your Resource Group, then click to + Add

Then fill the fields like below:

After click to Review + create, in a few minutes the Virtual Network Gateway will be ready:

Configuring AWS

4. Create the Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

5. Create a subnet inside the VPC (Virtual Network)

6. Create a customer gateway pointing to the public ip address of Azure VPN Gateway

The Customer Gateway is an AWS resource with information to AWS about the customer gateway device, which in this case is the Azure VPN Gateway.

7. Create the Virtual Private Gateway then attach to the VPC

8. Create a site-to-site VPN Connection

Set the routing as static pointing to the azure subnet-01 prefix (172.10.1.0/24)

After fill the options, click to create.

9. Download the configuration file

Please note that you need to change the Vendor, Platform and Software to Generic since Azure isn’t a valid option:

In this configuration file you will note that there are the Shared Keys and the Public Ip Address for each of one of the two IPSec tunnels created by AWS:

After the creation, you should have something like this:

Adding the AWS information on Azure Configuration

10. Now let’s create the Local Network Gateway

The Local Network Gateway is an Azure resource with information to Azure about the customer gateway device, in this case the AWS Virtual Private Gateway

Now you need to specify the public ip address from the AWS Virtual Private Gateway and the VPC CIDR prefix.

Please note that the public address from the AWS Virtual Private Gateway is described at the configuration file you have downloaded.

As mentioned earlier, AWS creates two IPSec tunnels to high availability purposes. I’ll use the public ip address from the IPSec Tunnel #1 for now.

11. Then let’s create the connection on the Virtual Network Gateway

You should fill the fields according below. Please note that the Shared key was obtained at the configuration file downloaded earlier and In this case, I’m using the Shared Key for the Ipsec tunnel #1 created by AWS and described at the configuration file.

After a few minutes, you can see the connection established:

In the same way, we can check on AWS that the 1st tunnel is up:

Now let’s edit the route table associated with our VPC

And add the route to Azure subnet through the Virtual Private Gateway:

12. Adding high availability

Now we can create a 2nd connection to ensure high availability. To do this let’s create another Local Network Gateway which we will point to the public ip address of the IPSec tunnel #2 on the AWS

Then we can create the 2nd connection on the Virtual Network Gateway:

And in a few moments we’ll have:

With this, our VPN connection is established on both sides and the work is done.

13. Let’s test!

First, let’s add an Internet Gateway to our VPC at AWS. The Internet Gateway is a logical connection between an Amazon VPN and the Internet. This resource will allow us to connect through the test VM from their public ip through internet. This is not required for the VPN connection, is just for our test:

After create, let’s attach to the VPC:

Now we can create a route to allow connections to 0.0.0.0/0 (Internet) through the Internet Gateway:

On Azure the route was automatically created. You can check selecting the Azure VM > Networking > Network Interface > Effective routes. Note that we have 2 (1 per connection):

Now I’ve created a Linux VM on Azure and our environment looks like this:

And I did the same VM creation on AWS that looks like this:

Then we can test the connectivity betweeen Azure and AWS through our VPN connection: