Launching virtual appliances using the Azure CLI - BlueCat Address Manager

Advanced Azure users can also launch BlueCat Azure Virtual Appliances instances using the Azure command line interface.

To launch instances using the Azure CLI, you need to find the VM image on the Azure marketplace, and use the information from the image to run the command to launch to the instance.

For detailed information about installing and configuring the Azure CLI, refer to the following Azure documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/overview

If you are deploying the virtual appliance on Azure Government, refer to the following Azure documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-government/documentation-government-get-started-connect-with-cli

Launch BlueCat Azure Virtual Appliances using the Azure CLI

Find the VM image on the Azure Marketplace. For information, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/%0Aazure/virtual-machines/linux/cli-ps-findimage.

For example, the following command will return a table of available bluecat images for the East US region:

az vm image list --location eastus --publisher bluecat --all --output table

You'll receive the following VM image information, which you need to use to run the command in step 2.

VM image column	Parameter
urn	--image
sku	--plan-name
publisher	--plan-publisher
offer	--plan-product

Note: The Azure CLI SKUs for BlueCat Azure Virtual Appliance images are different than the BlueCat Product SKUs provided at purchase and used when launching via the Azure Portal Web UI. Use the Azure CLI SKUs bamvmforazure and bddsvmforazure when launching the appliance to use the most recent BlueCat Azure Virtual Appliance images. The version of Address Manager or DNS/DHCP Server is specified at the end of the image urn (i.e. bluecat:bluecat-dns-for-azure:bddsvmforazure:9.4.0).

Run the following command:

computerName:MS-Azure userName$ az vm create --resource-group <rg-resourceGroupName> --location <locationCode> 
--name <bddsName> --size <vm size> --authentication-type ssh --admin-username bluecat --ssh-key-value <sshKey>.pub
--custom-data cloud-init.txt --image <image URN> --nics <nic 1 name> <nic 2 name> --plan-name <image SKU> 
--plan-publisher <image publisher> --plan-product <image offer>

For example:

computerName:MS-Azure yourName$ az vm create --resource-group rg-exampleGroup --location westus --name bdds1
--size Standard_F4S_v2 --authentication-type ssh --admin-username bluecat --ssh-key-value mysshKey.pub 
--custom-data cloud-init.txt --image bluecat:bluecat-dns-for-azure:bddsvmforazure:9.4.0 --nics bdds1-nic-eth0 
bdds1-nic-eth2 --plan-name bddsvmforazure --plan-publisher bluecat --plan-product bluecat-dns-for-azure

Where the cloud-init.txt file contains the following license information:

#cloud-config
bluecat_license:
   key: "XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX"
   id: "your client id"

Note: #cloud-config must be in a valid YAML format. Spaces are required before line 3 (Activation key) and line 4 (Client ID).

Note: For more information on az vm create parameters, refer to https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cli/azure/vm?view=azure-cli-latest#az-vm-create

Attention: Based on the Address Manager or DNS/DHCP model that you would like to deploy, the --size value must be one of the following instance types:

BlueCat Address Manager for Azure

Product SKU	Instance type	`--size` value	vCPUs	Memory (GB)
cBAM-1000	Standard F4s v2	Standard_F4s_v2	4	8
cBAM-5000	Standard F16s v2	Standard_F16s_v2	16	32
cBAM-7000	Standard F32s v2	Standard_F32s_v2	32	64

BlueCat DNS & DHCP for Azure

Product SKU	Instance type	`--size` value	vCPUs	Memory (GB)
cBDDS-25	Standard F4s v2	Standard_F4s_v2	4	8
cBDDS-50	Standard F8s v2	Standard_F8s_v2	8	16
cBDDS-75	Standard F16s v2	Standard_F16s_v2	16	32
cBDDS-125	Standard F32s v2	Standard_F32s_v2	32	64

For detailed information about Azure VM sizes, refer to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/sizes-general.