By Selman Karaosmanoglu

Date created

30 March 2024

Azure Infrastructure Operations Project: Deploy a scalable IaaS web server on Azure

Introduction

This is a project that utilizes Packer and Terraform to deploy a customisable, scalable web server on Azure.

Overview

First Part: Azure Policy

Deploying an Azure policy on Azure that restricts the creation of resources unless they have a tag.

Second Part: Deploy an Image with Packer

Deploying a server template on Azure with Packer.

It configures the following:

• The base image, which is Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
• Provisioning, which creates index.html and runs busybox.

The output will be stored in a managed image named PackerImage within the resource group.

Third Part: Provision Resources on Azure

Provisioning following resources on Azure via Terraform.

• Resource group (as a reference): A logical container for resources deployed on Azure.
• Virtual Network: A private network in Azure that allows you to securely connect Azure resources.
• Subnet: A subdivision of a virtual network that allows you to segment resources.
• Network Security Group: A firewall that filters network traffic to and from Azure resources.
• Network Interface: A virtual network interface card (NIC) attached to a virtual machine.
• Network Interface Security Group Association: Associates a network security group with a network interface.
• Public IP: A public IP address that allows resources to communicate over the internet.
• Load Balancer: Distributes incoming network traffic across multiple resources.
• Load Balancer Probe: Monitors the health of resources behind a load balancer.
• Backend Address Pool: A collection of IP addresses for load-balanced resources.
• Load Balancer Rule: Defines how traffic is distributed to backend resources.
• Network Interface Backend Adress Pool Association: Associates a network interface with a backend address pool.
• Availability Set: Ensures high availability by distributing VMs across fault domains and update domains.
• Managed Disk: A block-level storage volume that is managed by Azure and used with Azure Virtual Machines.
• Packer Image (as a reference): A custom image created using HashiCorp Packer.
• Linux Virtual Machine: A virtual machine running a Linux operating system.
• Virtual Machine Data Disk Attacehement: Attaches a data disk to a virtual machine.

The main configuration file -main.tf- is flexible. This means that it can be customised by defining values in variables.tf. In this way it is possible to configure the number of virtual machines on Azure.

Requirements

1. Install the Azure command line interface
2. Install Packer
3. Install Terraform

Instructions

First authenticate and establish a session with Azure.

az login

1. Deploy the policy

1.1 Create a policy definition for tagging

az policy definition create --name "tagging-policy" --display-name "Tagging Policy" --description "Ensure all indexed resources have tags" --rules deny-policy.json

1.2 Assign the policy definition

az policy assignment create --name "tagging-policy-assignment" --display-name "Tagging Policy Assignment" --policy "tagging-policy"

2. Create a machine image with Packer on Azure

Build the image using packer.

A resource group and service principal required to execute the command. To reproduce the command below, change the following fields in packer-server.json accordingly:

• managed_image_resource_group_name (The resource group name on Azure)
• client_id (Application ID from the Service Principal)
• client_secret (Client Secret from the Service Principal)
• subscription_id (Azure Subscription ID)

packer build packer-server.json

3. Provision Resources on Azure using Terraform

3.1 Initialize a new Terraform configuration

terraform init

3.2 Variables of Terraform configuration

The variables.tf file is the central location for defining input variables for the Terraform configuration. The variables in this file are as follows:

• prefix: This variable specifies the prefix to be used for all resources in the example. This value needs to be specified during deployment.

• location: The Azure Region where all resources in this example should be created. The default value is “westeurope.”

• number_of_vms: Indicates the number of virtual machines (VMs) to be deployed. The default value is 3.

• admin_username: The admin username for the VMs being created. This value needs to be specified during deployment.

• admin_password: The password for the VMs. Similar to the username, this value must be provided during deployment.

• image: Specifies the VM image to deploy. The default value is “PackerImage.”

• environment: A tag representing the environment (e.g., “Production”).

Customize these variables in variables.tf according to your specific requirements.

3.3 Generate Terraform plan

terraform plan -out solution.tfplan

3.4 Apply Terraform plan

terraform apply solution.tfplan

3.5 Destroy Terraform

Destroy when no longer needed.

terraform destroy

Alternative way

Alternatively, you can also follow the jupyter notebooks listed below which consist of shell commands for each part. It can be run via VSCode or Jupyter Lab:

1-policy-definition-assignment.ipynb (for Azure policy)

2-packer.ipynb (for Packer)

3-terraform.ipynb (for Terraform)

Credits

This project is part of the Udacity Data Engineer Nanodegree Program.