Gather important Virtual Machine (VM) console data

The article provides generic guidance on how to collect data necessary for diagnosing VM console-related issues.

Prerequisites to complete these procedures

In order to ssh to a virtual machine, you must have:

• Created a Private endpoint connecting to the Cluster Manager's Private link service
• Virtual machine instance with a given name
• Created the corresponding Console with same name used for the virtual machine

Data collection

Data needed by the VM Console service team for troubleshooting

If there's a problem that needs to further investigation by the VM Console service team, collect the following information to help them get started:

• A detailed description of the problem and its effect to the end user.
• Screenshots. The Azure portal is obviously a visual component. Try to get as much visual data as possible to describe the problem happening. Screenshots are often the best way to show the problem or how to reproduce the problem.
• Private Endpoint IP
• Private Endpoint connectivity
• Collecting Console Data

Determine the private endpoint connectivity

1. Navigate to the Azure portal where customer's work environment is located.
2. Select the Private endpoint resource used for ssh to the virtual machine
3. In the Private endpoint screen, select the Private link resource
4. Capture screenshot of Private link resource screen.
5. Confirm with the customer that Private endpoint is referencing the correct Private Link Service, as it's possible that customer might be using the wrong PLE when trying to ssh to a virtual machine.

Determine the private endpoint IP address

1. Navigate to the Azure portal where customer's work environment is located.
2. Select the Private endpoint resource used for ssh to the virtual machine
3. In the Private endpoint screen, select the Network interface
4. In that screen, you find the Private IPv4 address, for example, 10.1.0.5
5. Confirm with customer that whit IP address was in the ssh command, for example, ssh -p 2222 <virtual machine access id>@10.1.0.5

Another way to retrieve the Private endpoint IP addresses is using Azure CLI, as shown here.

ple_interface_ids=$(az network private-endpoint list --resource-group <ple resource group> --query "[].networkInterfaces[0].id" -o tsv)

for ple_interface_id in $ple_interface_ids; do
    ple_name=$(echo $ple_interface_id | awk -F/ '{print $NF}'| awk -F. '{print $1}')
    export sshmux_ple_ip=$(az network nic show --ids $ple_interface_id --query 'ipConfigurations[0].privateIPAddress' -o tsv)
    echo "ple name: ${ple_name}, ple ip: ${sshmux_ple_ip}"
done

In case the script option is used, ask the customer which private endpoint ip address was used.

Collect the Console data

1. Navigate to the Azure portal where the cluster manager is located.
2. Select on Extended location to view its extended locations.
3. Select the Console resource in question.
4. Collect the data for the console resource to be investigated.
   • Console Enabled
   • Console Expiration
   • Console Ssh public key
   • Console Virtual machine access ID

If the access to Azure portal isn't available, you're also able to retrieve the Console data with az networkcloud virtualmachine console show command.

az networkcloud virtualmachine console show \
    --resource-group "${TARGET_RESOURCE_GROUP}" \
    --virtual-machine-name "${VM_NAME}"

Where:

• TARGET_RESOURCE_GROUP is the resource group where the customer's virtual machine was created
• VM_NAME is the name of the customer's virtual machine name