Creating and accessing a Cloud-hosted Linux Virtual Machine

Creating and accessing a Cloud-hosted Linux Virtual Machine

    Creating and accessing a cloud-hosted Linux virtual machine (VM) on Azure can be done using the Azure Portal or Azure CLI. This blog will describe how I was able to create a Linux VM using the Azure Portal.

Note: You will have to create a Microsoft azure account and verify it to use its services.

Step 1: Sign in to the Azure Portal

Step 2: Create a resource group

My resource group name is ubuntu.linux_group 

Step 3: Create a virtual machine

Click on "Create a resource" in the Azure Portal and search for "Ubuntu Server". Select the version of the distribution you want to use and click "Create".

Step 4: Configure the virtual machine

Fill in the required information such as the name of the Virtual Machine, username, and password. Choose the VM size, storage account type. Set up properties of the virtual machine. I am using the standard package which has a 4 thread CPU. I have set ram size 4GB and using a standard HDD of 64GB.

Step 5: Configure networking

The VM will be created and a public IP address will be assigned. In my case, my public IP address was 20.255.60.24 

Step 6: Review and create the virtual machine

Review the configuration settings and click "Create" to deploy the virtual machine.  

These are the following properties of the virtual machine after deployment.

 

 

Step 7: Access the virtual machine

            Download the .pem file which will be your private key to the VM and copy the address                            generated under onto the cmd portal. You will access the VM using SSH key.

            In the image below I have checked if my directory is working using 'ls' command

    In conclusion, creating and accessing a cloud-hosted Linux VM on Azure can be done through the Azure Portal.

    Now we will setup xrdp. After deployment of our VM we will now configure it to access xrdp.

Step 8: Enable RDP access

By default, RDP access is not enabled on Linux VM. To enable RDP access, you need to install and configure a Remote Desktop server. For example, you can install xrdp by running the following commands in a terminal:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install xrdp

You can use the following link to set up rdp: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/use-remote-desktop?tabs=azure-cli

Step 9: Open the RDP port

            Open CLI on Azure and open the RDP port (3389) in the network security group to allow RDP                access to the VM.

            

Step 10: Connect to the VM using RDP

            Download the RDP file from the connect portal and click on it. It will take you to the xrdp.                    Enter the username and password you created in step 4 to log in to the VM. You should now be             connected to the Linux VM using RDP.

            

In conclusion, creating and accessing a cloud-hosted Linux VM on Azure using RDP requires some additional configuration steps, but it can be done easily through the Azure CLI.