Tutorials

Video

Introduction

This tutorial is designed for individuals with a basic understanding of cloud concepts and who are interested in learning how to set up a virtual machine (VM) on Azure and deploy an Nginx web server. We will go step-by-step through the process, emphasizing best practices and troubleshooting.

Method

• We will use the Azure web console to manually provision a VM running the Linux distribution Ubuntu as Operating System (OS)
• We will deploy an Nginx web server by using the Ubuntu package manager running cloud-init.
• We will use a locally installed terminal to access the server (GitBash on Windows)

Prerequisites

• An Azure account. If you don’t have one, sign up here.
• Basic knowledge of cloud computing and familiarity with command-line interfaces (CLI).
• For Windows users: GitBash or similar terminal (Mac and Linux users can use the pre-installed terminal)

Provision a Virtual Machine

1. Log into Azure Portal

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Introduction

This tutorial is designed to give a basic understanding of cloud concepts to those who are interested in learning how to set up a virtual machine (VM) on Azure using an ARM template. We will go through the process step-by-step deploying an Ubuntu 22.04 LTS VM, creating a minimalistic solution that can be used as a foundation for further development.

Method

• We will use an ARM template to define and provision the Azure resources required for our VM, including network configurations and security settings.
• The ARM template will be launched using the Azure CLI, having a code-first approach to cloud infrastructure.
• Access to the deployed VM will be via password (in order to adhere to the minimalistic approach).

Prerequisites

• An Azure account. If you don’t have one, sign up here.
• Basic familiarity with JSON and the Azure Command-Line Interface (CLI).
• For Windows users: GitBash or similar terminal (Mac and Linux users can use the pre-installed terminal)

Provision a Virtual Machine Using ARM Template

Prepare Your ARM Template

🎯 Goal

Install PHP on your Ubuntu VM and create a simple web application that processes HTML form submissions, demonstrating basic server-side processing with PHP.

📋 Prerequisites

Before beginning this exercise, you should:

• Have completed the previous VM creation exercises
• Have an Ubuntu VM running with Nginx installed
• Be able to SSH into your VM
• Understand basic HTML form structure

📚 Learning Objectives

By the end of this exercise, you will:

Overview

This tutorial explains how to install the LEMP stack (Linux, Nginx, MySQL, PHP) on an Ubuntu Virtual Machine (VM).

Step 1: Provision the Virtual Machine

1. Create a resource group:

   az group create --name LempRG --location northeurope
   

2. Provision the Ubuntu VM:

   az vm create \
     --resource-group LempRG \
     --name LempVM \
     --image Ubuntu2204 \
     --size Standard_B1s \
     --admin-username azureuser \
     --generate-ssh-keys
   

3. Open port 80 for HTTP traffic:

   az vm open-port --resource-group LempRG --name LempVM --port 80
   

4. Retreive the Public IP of the VM:

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In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to copy files from your local laptop to a web server running in Azure.
We’ll cover two scenarios:

1. Direct access (server has a public IP).
2. Indirect access via a bastion host (server only has a private IP).

We’ll also use a staging folder (/tmp/app) on the server to keep things clean and make updates easier.

1. Local Project Setup

On your laptop, create a folder named app/ with three files:

Introduction

This tutorial is designed for developers and system administrators looking to configure Nginx as a reverse proxy in front of an application server on Azure. Both servers will reside within the same virtual network.

Prerequisites

• An active Azure account. Sign up here if you don’t have one.
• Familiarity with Azure portal, cloud networking, and SSH.
• Basic knowledge of Nginx.

In order to “set the table” so that we can verify that the reverse proxy works as expected, let’s create two VMs - one Application Server and one Reverse Proxy. These two servers should be connected to the same subnet in this example.