CODEWITHSUNDEEP
azurevirtual-machine
Sharon
Sharon

Reputation: 3919

How do I set up my Linux Azure VM so that I can connect via a browser?

I'm working on a Linux VM on Azure which was set up by someone else (so I don't know all the details). I'm trying to connect it to a domain name.

The server has a "Hello World" program, so when I go to "example.com" I should be seeing "Hello World". Currently I'm just getting 

Safari can't open the page "http://example.com" because Safari can't find the server "my domain.com"

I thought I'd start with making sure that the IP address connects to the server (which it did at one point. So I enter the IP address of the server (let's say it's "12.345.678.901") in the browser, and it can't connect... I get the error

Can't open the page "12.345.678.901" because the server where this page is located isn't responding

There's an Inbound port rule to allow connections for port 8080, so I tried "12.345.678.901:8080" but this time got

Can't open the page "12.345.678.901:8080" because Safari can't connect to the server

I don't know what to try next. Presumably something needs to be enabled on the server to allow the browser to connect?

The other inbound port rules are ssh on port 22 (TCP) and then what I assume are the standard Azure ones (I can't edit or delete them anyway).

Upvotes: 0

Views: 994

Answers (2)

python-noob
python-noob

Reputation: 156

You should first check to see if you have an entry for http://example.com. The reason could be that you do not have a DNS Entry and when you are trying to connect to it via the browser. Since you tried connecting to it via IP and it still did not work, I would suggest you check your Webserver configurations to make sure it is correctly listening for port 8080. Also, ensure that your webserver is also turned on as well. You can tail the webserver log and try to hit it via the IP like you did earlier and see if you see any errors in the logs. It would at least tell you if your request you are making on your browser is actually getting to the webserver.

Upvotes: 2

RoadRunner
RoadRunner

Reputation: 26315

To view your Linux VM inside the browser, you need to install a web server. Easiest to install and get working straight away is nginx.

First thing you need to do is SSH(port 22) into your VM using the username and IP address of the machine:

ssh username@ipaddress

Which will prompt you to enter a passphrase to gain access to the VM.

This also assumes your SSH public key exists inside ~/.ssh/authorized_keys on the VM. If you don't have this setup then you need to get the owner of the VM to copy your public key into this file. Otherwise you won't be able to connect and get a Permission denied (publickey) error.

Assuming the above works, you can install the nginx webserver with the following two commands:

sudo apt-get -y update
sudo apt-get -y install nginx

Then once this web server is installed, add an HTTP inbound port 80 rule inside the network settings. For security reasons, having your web server listen on this port is probably unsecure long term. Its just easier to get working when you choose this port to begin with, because its the default.

You can see what the default listening port by viewing the server configuration host file with cat /etc/nginx/sites-available/default:

#server {
#       listen 80;
#       listen [::]:80;
#
#       server_name example.com;
#
#       root /var/www/example.com;
#       index index.html;
#
#       location / {
#               try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
#       }
#}

Which shows the default port of 80. You can change this default port to 8080, then run sudo service nginx restart to restart the server and apply the changes. Additionally, you can have a look at this How to make Nginx Server Listen on Multiple Ports tutorial, which goes into more depth on how to configure listening ports for nginx webservers.

You should then be able to view your VM from a browser window(blurred out my IP address for security reasons):

enter image description here

You can also have a look at this Quickstart: Create a Linux virtual machine in the Azure portal tutorial for a step by step on how to get this setup in Azure.

Upvotes: 2

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