Azure

The Halon platform runs on Microsoft Azure.

Installation

1. Download the Azure VHD image from halon-5.2-p7-polly-azure-amd64.vhd
2. Upload the image to a storage account
3. Create a Linux image from it
4. Deploy VM based on image (Note: the VM must be generation 1)

When deploying the VM you must use the Azure CLI tools as you need to specify the --enable-agent false argument which is not possible when using the web interface.

Configuration

1. Browse to its web admin on port 443
2. Login with username and password "admin" (the credentials you choose in Azure aren't used)
3. Once the getting started guide is completed, you will be redirected to the web admin's overview page
4. Configure a storage disk on the Hosts -> System > Hardware page (for example Azure's included temp disk)
   • Formatting the desired storage disk (the system will reboot)
   • Login and go to the same page again, and choosing the desired storage disk at as storage device (the system will reboot again)

Storage disk

The system partition is read-only during normal operation, and all data (email, database, definitions, temp) are written to a separate storage partition. There are many different storage partitions options; the most simple in the Azure case is to use the included "temp" disk that comes with all VMs. It's however not guaranteed to be persistent, and its use is discouraged unless you use for example in-line delivery.

Another option is to "extend" the system partitions's disk by adding the storage partition to the end of it. An option to use the system disk as storage will automatically appear on the System > Hardware page if it's large enough (more than 10 GB). This is very common in "bare metal" installations, because the system partitons's disk is almost always larger than the 500 MB that the system partition occupies. In a virtual machine scenario, this is as simple as resizing the system disk.

Serial Console

To use the serial console with Azure the following two lines needs to be added to /boot/loader.conf.

console="comconsole vidconsole"
comconsole_speed="115200"

This can be done either by temporarily attaching the system volume to another VM or via SSH. To get SSH access please contact our support at support@halon.io.