Azure VPS setup notes¶

Azure is more complex than, say, Linode. To set up a free account, you must:

• Get a Sponsorship.
• Create a Subscription linked to the Sponsorship.
• Create a Resource Group linked to the Subscription.
• Create a Virtual Machine (and associated resources) linked to the Resource Group.

[NOTE: Most of Microsoft's pages break with an ad blocker enabled.]

Get a Sponsorship¶

• Go to the Nonprofit Microsoft Getting Started page. Fill out the paperwork to be approved as a 501c3. Approval can take 1 day or 3-4 weeks - I've seen both multiple times.
• Once approved, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/nonprofits/azure to claim credits.

Create a Subscription¶

• Check that you have credits in your sponsored account: https://www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com/Balance
• Visit the Azure Portal.
  
• Click the Subscriptions icon.
• Click the Add button.
• Add a subscription of type "Microsoft Azure Sponsorship" from the Azure portal. You will likely need to select Show other subscription types to see it.
  • Note: Even sponsored subscriptions require a credit card, make sure you have one available.

Create a resource group¶

• Select "Resource Group" from the main Azure portal.
  
• Select Add and give it a name.
• Your subscription should be pre-selected since you only have the one.
• Click Review and Create.

Create a virtual machine¶

• Click on your new resource group in the Azure Portal.
• Click Add.
• Search for the name of the image you want (e.g. Debian).
• See the screenshots below for configuration of the "Basics" and "Disk" tabs. The other tabs I keep with the defaults.
• I've attached a downloaded template for this VM, which as of now I haven't used yet, not sure how it works.

Post-provisioning configuration¶

Modify Firewall Rules¶

• Click on your new virtual machine in the Azure portal.
• Click Networking in the side navigation.
• You should see your firewall settings. They should look like the screenshot below, except they'll be missing the two items circled.
• Add the "allow_ping" and "Port_5665" rules to the Inbound Port Rules as shown in the screenshot.

Add a swapfile¶

Complete instructions are here but in short, add this to /etc/waagent.conf for an 8GB swapfile:

    ResourceDisk.Format=y
    ResourceDisk.EnableSwap=y
    ResourceDisk.SwapSizeMB=8192

Then run service walinuxagent restart.