path: root/README.md

## Microsoft Azure Linux Agent README

### INTRODUCTION

The Microsoft Azure Linux Agent (waagent) manages Linux & BSD provisioning,
and VM interaction with the Azure Fabric Controller. It provides the following
functionality for Linux and BSD IaaS deployments:

  * Image Provisioning
    - Creation of a user account
    - Configuring SSH authentication types
    - Deployment of SSH public keys and key pairs
    - Setting the host name
    - Publishing the host name to the platform DNS
    - Reporting SSH host key fingerprint to the platform
    - Resource Disk Management
    - Formatting and mounting the resource disk
    - Configuring swap space

  * Networking
    - Manages routes to improve compatibility with platform DHCP servers
    - Ensures the stability of the network interface name

  * Kernel
    - Configure virtual NUMA (disable for kernel <2.6.37)
    - Consume Hyper-V entropy for /dev/random
    - Configure SCSI timeouts for the root device (which could be remote)

  * Diagnostics
    - Console redirection to the serial port

  * SCVMM Deployments
    - Detect and bootstrap the VMM agent for Linux when running in a System
      Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012R2 environment

  * VM Extension
    - Inject component authored by Microsoft and Partners into Linux VM (IaaS)
      to enable software and configuration automation
    - VM Extension reference implementation on https://github.com/Azure/azure-linux-extensions


### COMMUNICATION

The information flow from the platform to the agent occurs via two channels:

  * A boot-time attached DVD for IaaS deployments.
    This DVD includes an OVF-compliant configuration file that includes all
    provisioning information other than the actual SSH keypairs.

  * A TCP endpoint exposing a REST API used to obtain deployment and topology
    configuration.

The agent will use an HTTP proxy if provided via the `http_proxy` (for `http` requests) or
`https_proxy` (for `https` requests) environment variables. The `HttpProxy.Host` and
`HttpProxy.Port` configuration variables (see below), if used, will override the environment
settings. Due to limitations of Python, the agent *does not* support HTTP proxies requiring
authentication.


### REQUIREMENTS

The following systems have been tested and are known to work with the Azure
Linux Agent.  Please note that this list may differ from the official list
of supported systems on the Microsoft Azure Platform as described here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2805216

Waagent depends on some system packages in order to function properly:

  * Python 2.6+
  * OpenSSL 1.0+
  * OpenSSH 5.3+
  * Filesystem utilities: sfdisk, fdisk, mkfs, parted
  * Password tools: chpasswd, sudo
  * Text processing tools: sed, grep
  * Network tools: ip-route


### INSTALLATION

Installation via your distribution's package repository is preferred.
You can also customize your own RPM or DEB packages using the configuration
samples provided (see deb and rpm sections below).

For more advanced installation options, such as installing to custom locations 
or prefixes, you can use ***setuptools*** to install from source by running:
   
    #sudo python setup.py install --register-service

You can view more installation options by running:

    #sudo python setup.py install --help

The agent's log file is kept at /var/log/waagent.log.

### UPGRADE

Upgrading via your distribution's package repository is preferred.

If upgrading manually, same with installation above by running:

    #sudo python setup.py install --force

Restart waagent service,for most of linux distributions:

    #sudo service waagent restart

For Ubuntu, use:

    #sudo service walinuxagent restart

For CoreOS, use:

    #sudo systemctl restart waagent 

The agent's log file is kept at /var/log/waagent.log.


### COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

Flags:

  -verbose: Increase verbosity of specified command

  -force: Skip interactive confirmation for some commands

Commands:

-help: Lists the supported commands and flags.

-deprovision: Attempt to clean the system and make it suitable for 
re-provisioning, by deleting the following:
   
   * All SSH host keys (if Provisioning.RegenerateSshHostKeyPair 
    is 'y' in the configuration file)
   * Nameserver configuration in /etc/resolv.conf
   * Root password from /etc/shadow (if 
    Provisioning.DeleteRootPassword is 'y' in the configuration file)
   * Cached DHCP client leases
   * Resets host name to localhost.localdomain

   WARNING! Deprovision does not guarantee that the image is cleared of 
   all sensitive information and suitable for redistribution.

-deprovision+user: Performs everything under deprovision (above) 
and also deletes the last provisioned user account and associated data.

-version: Displays the version of waagent

-serialconsole: Configures GRUB to mark ttyS0 (the first serial port) 
as the boot console. This ensures that kernel bootup logs are sent to 
the serial port and made available for debugging.

-daemon: Run waagent as a daemon to manage interaction with the 
platform. This argument is specified to waagent in the waagent init 
script.

-start: Run waagent as a background process

### CONFIGURATION

A configuration file (/etc/waagent.conf) controls the actions of
waagent. Blank lines and lines whose first character is a `#` are
ignored (end-of-line comments are *not* supported).

A sample configuration file is shown below:

```
Provisioning.Enabled=y
Provisioning.UseCloudInit=n
Provisioning.DeleteRootPassword=n
Provisioning.RegenerateSshHostKeyPair=y
Provisioning.SshHostKeyPairType=rsa
Provisioning.MonitorHostName=y
Provisioning.DecodeCustomData=n
Provisioning.ExecuteCustomData=n
Provisioning.PasswordCryptId=6
Provisioning.PasswordCryptSaltLength=10
ResourceDisk.Format=y
ResourceDisk.Filesystem=ext4
ResourceDisk.MountPoint=/mnt/resource
ResourceDisk.MountOptions=None
ResourceDisk.EnableSwap=n
ResourceDisk.SwapSizeMB=0
LBProbeResponder=y
Logs.Verbose=n
OS.AllowHTTP=n
OS.RootDeviceScsiTimeout=300
OS.EnableFIPS=n
OS.OpensslPath=None
OS.SshDir=/etc/ssh
HttpProxy.Host=None
HttpProxy.Port=None
```

The various configuration options are described in detail below. Configuration
options are of three types : Boolean, String or Integer. The Boolean
configuration options can be specified as "y" or "n". The special keyword "None"
may be used for some string type configuration entries as detailed below.

#### Configuration File Options

* __Provisioning.Enabled__  
_Type: Boolean_  
_Default: y_  

This allows the user to enable or disable the provisioning functionality in the
agent. Valid values are "y" or "n". If provisioning is disabled, SSH host and
user keys in the image are preserved and any configuration specified in the
Azure provisioning API is ignored.

* __Provisioning.UseCloudInit__
_Type: Boolean_
_Default: n_

This options enables / disables support for provisioning by means of cloud-init.
When true ("y"), the agent will wait for cloud-init to complete before installing
extensions and processing the latest goal state. _Provisioning.Enabled_ must be
disabled ("n") for this option to have an effect. Setting _Provisioning.Enabled_ to
true ("y") overrides this option and runs the built-in agent provisioning code.

* __Provisioning.DeleteRootPassword__  
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: n_  

If set, the root password in the /etc/shadow file is erased during the
provisioning process.

* __Provisioning.RegenerateSshHostKeyPair__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: y_   

If set, all SSH host key pairs (ecdsa, dsa and rsa) are deleted during the
provisioning process from /etc/ssh/. And a single fresh key pair is generated.
The encryption type for the fresh key pair is configurable by the
Provisioning.SshHostKeyPairType entry. Please note that some distributions will
re-create SSH key pairs for any missing encryption types when the SSH daemon is
restarted (for example, upon a reboot).

* __Provisioning.SshHostKeyPairType__   
_Type: String_   
_Default: rsa_   

This can be set to an encryption algorithm type that is supported by the SSH
daemon on the VM. The typically supported values are "rsa", "dsa" and "ecdsa".
Note that "putty.exe" on Windows does not support "ecdsa". So, if you intend to
use putty.exe on Windows to connect to a Linux deployment, please use "rsa" or
"dsa".

* __Provisioning.MonitorHostName__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: y_   

If set, waagent will monitor the Linux VM for hostname changes (as returned by
the "hostname" command) and automatically update the networking configuration in
the image to reflect the change. In order to push the name change to the DNS
servers, networking will be restarted in the VM. This will result in brief loss
of Internet connectivity.

* __Provisioning.DecodeCustomData__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: n_   

If set, waagent will decode CustomData from Base64.

* __Provisioning.ExecuteCustomData__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: n_   

If set, waagent will execute CustomData after provisioning.

* __Provisioning.PasswordCryptId__   
_Type:String_   
_Default:6_   

Algorithm used by crypt when generating password hash.   
  1 - MD5   
  2a - Blowfish   
  5 - SHA-256   
  6 - SHA-512   

* __Provisioning.PasswordCryptSaltLength__   
_Type:String_   
_Default:10_   

Length of random salt used when generating password hash.

* __ResourceDisk.Format__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: y_   

If set, the resource disk provided by the platform will be formatted and mounted
by waagent if the filesystem type requested by the user in
"ResourceDisk.Filesystem" is anything other than "ntfs". A single partition of
type Linux (83) will be made available on the disk. Note that this partition
will not be formatted if it can be successfully mounted.

* __ResourceDisk.Filesystem__   
_Type: String_   
_Default: ext4_   

This specifies the filesystem type for the resource disk. Supported values vary
by Linux distribution. If the string is X, then mkfs.X should be present on the
Linux image. SLES 11 images should typically use 'ext3'. BSD images should use
'ufs2' here.

* __ResourceDisk.MountPoint__   
_Type: String_   
_Default: /mnt/resource_   

This specifies the path at which the resource disk is mounted.

* __ResourceDisk.MountOptions__   
_Type: String_   
_Default: None_   

Specifies disk mount options to be passed to the mount -o command. This is a comma
separated list of values, ex. 'nodev,nosuid'. See mount(8) for details.

* __ResourceDisk.EnableSwap__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: n_   

If set, a swap file (/swapfile) is created on the resource disk and added to the
system swap space.

* __ResourceDisk.SwapSizeMB__   
_Type: Integer_   
_Default: 0_   

The size of the swap file in megabytes.   

* __LBProbeResponder__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: y_   

If set, waagent will respond to load balancer probes from the platform (if
present).

* Logs.Verbose   
_Type: Boolean_    
_Default: n_   

If set, log verbosity is boosted. Waagent logs to /var/log/waagent.log and
leverages the system logrotate functionality to rotate logs.

* __OS.AllowHTTP__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: n_   

If set to `y` and SSL support is not compiled into Python, the agent will fall-back to
use HTTP. Otherwise, if SSL support is not compiled into Python, the agent will fail
all HTTPS requests.

Note: Allowing HTTP may unintentionally expose secure data.

* __OS.EnableRDMA__   
_Type: Boolean_    
_Default: n_   

If set, the agent will attempt to install and then load an RDMA kernel driver
that matches the version of the firmware on the underlying hardware.

* __OS.EnableFIPS__   
_Type: Boolean_   
_Default: n_   

If set, the agent will emit into the environment "OPENSSL_FIPS=1" when executing
OpenSSL commands. This signals OpenSSL to use any installed FIPS-compliant libraries.
Note that the agent itself has no FIPS-specific code. _If no FIPS-compliant are
installed, then enabling this option will cause all OpenSSL commands to fail._

* __OS.RootDeviceScsiTimeout__   
_Type: Integer_    
_Default: 300_   

This configures the SCSI timeout in seconds on the root device. If not set, the
system defaults are used.

* __OS.OpensslPath__   
_Type: String_    
_Default: None_   

This can be used to specify an alternate path for the openssl binary to use for
cryptographic operations.

* __OS.SshDir__   
_Type: String_   
_Default: `/etc/ssh`_   

This option can be used to override the normal location of the SSH configuration
directory.

* __HttpProxy.Host, HttpProxy.Port__   
_Type: String_   
_Default: None_   

If set, the agent will use this proxy server to access the internet. These values
*will* override the `http_proxy` or `https_proxy` environment variables. Lastly,
`HttpProxy.Host` is required (if to be used) and `HttpProxy.Port` is optional.

### APPENDIX

We do not maintain packaging information in this repo but some samples 
are shown below as a reference. See the downstream distribution 
repositories for officially maintained packaging. 

#### deb packages

The official Ubuntu WALinuxAgent package can be found here: 
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/walinuxagent

Run once:
   1. Install required packages:
       `sudo apt-get -y install ubuntu-dev-tools pbuilder python-all debhelper`
       
   2. Create the pbuilder environment:
       `sudo pbuilder create --debootstrapopts --variant=buildd`
       
   3. Obtain <waagent.dsc> from a downstream package repo

To compile the package, from the top-most directory:
   1. Build the source package:
       `dpkg-buildpackage -S`

   2. Build the package:
       `sudo pbuilder build <waagent.dsc>`

   3. Fetch the built package, usually from `/var/cache/pbuilder/result`
 
#### rpm packages

The instructions below describe how to build an rpm package. 

  1. Install setuptools
     `curl https://bootstrap.pypa.io/ez_setup.py -o - | python`
    
  2. The following command will build the binary and source RPMs:
     `python setup.py bdist_rpm`

-----

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