This article describes how to deploy the Expel Assembler on Microsoft Azure. For more information on the general Assembler provisioning process, see How to provision Expel Assembler.
Note
You may need to do things differently than described here, depending on how your Azure is configured.
Step 1: Upload the Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) to Azure
If you prefer using the Azure CLI, go to https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/upload-vhd and follow Option 1 for Upload a VHD. Or, follow these steps to upload the VHD through the Azure Portal.
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Extract the downloaded .zip file In Windows, right-click on the downloaded file to open the context menu and click Extract All.
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Go to https://portal.azure.com/.
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Go to Storage Accounts.
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Create a new storage account with a Performance of "standard" (to create a storage account of kind General Purpose v2) or use an existing General Purpose v2 storage account.
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In the storage account you want to use, select Blob Service, then click the + Container button to create a new storage container.
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Give the new container a name, and click Create.
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In the new container, click the Upload button, and select the extracted VHD file to upload. This is a 30GB file, so it can take a while to upload.
Step 2: Create a virtual machine from the VHD
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Go to Images. It’s not in the default Favorites, so you may have to access it from All Services.
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Click Create.
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Type the following values:
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Name/Subscription/Resource Group/Location/Zone Resiliency: your choice.
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OS type: Linux.
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VM Generation: Gen 1.
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Storage blob: select the VHD you uploaded.
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Account type: your choice. This is the storage location of the image, not your VM itself, so HDD performance is acceptable.
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Host caching: Read/write.
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Click Create.
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After the image is created, select the image name, then Create VM.
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Type the following values:
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Subscription/Resource Group/Virtual machine name/Region/Availability options: your choice.
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Size: F4s_v2 size or, if you prefer, another size with at least 4 virtual CPUs and 8GB RAM.
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VM disk type: SSD.
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Authentication type: Password.
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Username: temp. This account won’t be used, but Azure makes you create one. We’ll delete it after the VM is running.
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Password: your choice (again, this isn't actually used, so you don't need to remember it).
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Public inbound ports: none.
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License type: Other (the Assembler is CentOS-based, which doesn't require a license).
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Click Review + create. If everything looks good, click Create.
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Select the Virtual Machine after it is created.
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Under Support + Troubleshooting on the left menu, select Serial Console.
Go back to How to provision Expel Assembler and continue with Activate the Assembler through the virtual machine console.