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Prerequisites

As this description shows the basic setup of a Linux instance in Azure, it does not list specific prerequisites. However, depending on the use case, the following prerequisites should be considered:

• To set up a Linux instance in Azure, you need a Microsoft Azure subscription.
• If this instance is to be used as a Charon host system, refer to the user's guide of your Charon product to determine the exact hardware and software prerequisites that must be taken into account for the Linux instance. The image you use for your instance and the instance size you chose determine which hardware and software your cloud instance has.
• If this instance is to be used as a Charon host system, a product license is required to run emulated systems. Contact your Stromasys representative or Stromasys VAR for details.
• Certain legacy operating systems that can run in emulated systems provided by Charon emulator products require a license of the original vendor of the operating system. The user is responsible for any licensing obligations related to the legacy operating system and has to provide the appropriate licenses.

Azure Login and New Instance Launch

Log in to your Azure account

To log in perform the following steps:

• Go to portal.azure.com. You will see a Microsoft Azure login screen.
• Enter your login credentials.
• Upon successful login, the Azure home screen will be displayed as shown in the example below:

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Create a Virtual Machine

Step 1: Click on the Virtual machines icon on the home page.

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This opens the virtual machines overview list.

Step 2: Click on the Add icon in the overview list.

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This opens the Basics tab of the Create a Virtual Machine window.

Step 3: Enter your data on the Basics tab. Mandatory data are, for example:

• Your subscription
• Existing resource group (or click on Create new)
• Virtual machine name
• Region for the virtual machine
• Linux image: choose a supported Linux version or - if appropriate - a prepackaged Charon VE (or AL for AutoVE) marketplace image.
• Size of your VM (click on Select size to see a list of available sizes)
• User name for the administrative user of the VM
• Authentication type (SSH or password). Then either paste the public key of the key-pair to use into the field provided, or enter and confirm your password.

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Basics tab upper part sample:

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Basics tab lower part sample:

• Enter the name of the administrative user.
• Select SSH public key authentication. You can then use one of the following steps to install your SSH public key.
  
  • Let Azure create a new key-pair for you.
  • Use the public key from a key-pair on your computer. As shown in the example below, you will have to past your public key into the field provided.
  • Use a key-pair previously created on Azure.
• The default allowed inbound port will allow SSH connections without limiting the source IP range. Remember to adapt it to your requirements after creating the instance or in the Networking tab (advanced) during the creation of the instance.

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Click on Next: Disks. This will open the Disks tab of the VM creation window.

Step 4: Define the disks for your VM.

Please note: By default, Azure VMs have one operating system disk and a temporary disk for short-term storage (mounted on /mnt/resource and not persistent). You can attach existing additional data disks, or create new disks and attach them.

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Disks tab sample:

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Click on Next: Networking. This will open the Networking tab of the VM creation window.

Step 5: Enter the necessary information in the Networking tab.

On this tab, you can define the network configuration of your VM:

• Virtual Network (existing or new)
• Subnet (default or other subnet)
• Whether a public IP should be assigned or not
• Basic security settings (which ports are open for access to the VM).

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Networking tab sample:

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Optionally, you can proceed to the Management, Advanced, and Tags tabs to configure additional details of your VM. However, for a basic test, this is not required.

Click on Review + Create to proceed to the review screen.

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Step 6: additional configuration for AutoVE setup.

If the instance is launched from a Charon AL marketplace image and is planned to use AutoVE licensing (instead of the public license servers), you must add the corresponding information to the instance configuration before the first launch of the instance:

Step 7: Check the data on the Review + Create screen and create VM.

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If key-pair was newly created, download private key:

If you chose to let Azure create a new SSH key-pair, you will be asked to download the private key after clicking on the Create button, this step is very important as this is the only opportunity to download the private key, which is required to access your VM. The image below shows a sample of this prompt:

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The Deployment page:

Create will take you to the Deployment page (possibly after downloading the private SSH key) where the current status of the deployment is displayed. Once the VM has been fully deployed, the Deployment Complete screen will be displayed.

Sample Deployment Complete screen:

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Click on Go to resource to get to the details page of the newly created VM. The image below shows a sample of a detail page:

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Initial Access to the Instance

Once you have access to the instance, you can create the access you require for your applications. This section just shows the basic steps for initial access to the instance.

SSH Interactive Access

To connect to the instance interactively, you must connect as the management user of your instance. Use the following command:

$ ssh -o ServerAliveInterval=30 -i <path-to-your-private-key> <management-user-name>@<cloudhost-IP-address>

Please note:

• Depending on the type of connection, you will have to use either the public IP address of the cloud system or its address in a customer-specific VPN.
• The management user account normally allows sudo access to privileged commands (use sudo -i).

File Transfer with SFTP

SFTP enables file transfers to and from the cloud instance. Use the management user of your instance. The security rules must allow SSH access to allow SFTP access to the cloud instance.

Please note: Depending on the type of connection, you will have to use either the public IP address of the cloud system or its address in a customer-specific VPN.

To connect to the instance, use the following command:

$ sftp -i <path-to-your-private-key> <management-user>@<cloudhost-IP-address>