ken-hum / dashboard

VMSS Dashboard tools

Simple Python tools to demonstrate Azure Virtual Machine Scale Sets by calling the Azure Compute REST API.

VMSS Editor

GUI editor to view and manage Azure VM Scale Sets.

VMSS Editor is a Python/Tkinter script to manage VM Scale Sets. You can use it to:

• View VM Scale Set properties and status.
• Manually scale a VM Scale Set in or out.
• Upgrade the sku of a platform image.
• Upgrade the version of a platform image, or upgrade a custom image.
• Vertically scale - increase of decrease VMs size and roll it out across the set.
• Perform a rolling upgrade of image or VM size across scale set
• Start/Restart/Power off/Stop dealloc a scale set.
• View scale set VMs in a heat map showing fault domains and update domains.
• Operate on fault domains: Upgrade/Reimage/Start/Power off.
• Operate on individual VMs: Upgrade/Reimage/Start/Power off/Delete/Restart/Dealloc.

Installation

1. Install Python 3.x.
2. Install the latest azurerm REST wrappers for Microsoft Azure: "pip install azurerm". If the azurerm Python library is already installed, do an update, as only the latest version of VMSS Editor is tested with the latest version of azurerm.
3. Clone or copy this repo. Specifically you need vmsseditor.py, subscription.py, vmss.py, vm.ico and vmssconfig.json.
4. Authenticate - you can do this by creating a Service Principal, or by logging in with CLI. Service Principal - Register an Azure application, create a service principal and get your tenant id. See "Using vmssdashboard and vmsseditor" below. CLI - See Authenticating using CLI in the Azurerm readme - this will require a couple of modifications to VMSSEditor - log an issue if anyone wants me to add built-in support for authenticating using CLI instead of using a Service Principal.
5. Put in values for your application and subscription in vmssconfig.json.
6. Run: python vmsseditor.py

Using vmssdashboard and vmsseditor

To use these apps (and in general to access Azure Resource Manager from a program without going through 2 factor authentication) you need to register your application with Azure and create a "Service Principal" (an application equivalent of a user). Once you've done this you'll have 3 pieces of information: A tenant ID, an application ID, and an application secret. You will use these to populate the vmssconfig.json file. For more information on how to get this information go here: [Authenticating a service principal with Azure Resource Manager][service-principle]. See also: [Azure Resource Manager REST calls from Python][python-auth].

[service-principle]: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/resource-group-authenticate-service-principal/ - make sure you create it with at least "Contributor" rights, not "Reader". [python-auth]: https://msftstack.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/azure-resource-manager-authentication-with-python

Performing a rolling upgrade

The rolling upgrade feature was added to show how scale set operations like "manualUpgrade" can be combined to form a semi-automated roll-out of VM updates without disrupting application availability.

Here's a 2 minute video demo of the rolling upgrade feature in action..

Check this Wiki page on how to use custom images for VM scale sets in Azure.