VMAccess

VMAccess Extension

Provide several ways to allow owner of the VM to get the SSH access back and perform additional VM disk check tasks.

Current version is 1.5.

You can read the User Guide below.

• Using VMAccess Extension to Reset Login Credentials, Add New User and Add SSH Key for Linux VM

VMAccess Extension can:

• Reset the password of the original sudo user
• Create a new sudo user with the password specified
• Set the public host key with the key given
• Reset the public host key provided during VM provisioning if host key not provided
• Open the SSH port(22) and restore the sshd_config if reset_ssh is set to true
• Remove the existing user
• Check disks
• Repair added disk.

Security Notes:

• VMAccess Extension is designed for regaining access to a VM in the event that access is lost.
• Based on this principle, it will grant sudo permission to the account specified in the username field.
• Do not specify a user in the username field if you do not wish that user to gain sudo permissions.
• Instead, login to the VM and use built-in tools (e.g. usermod, chage, etc) to manage unprivileged users.

User Guide

1. Configuration schema

1.1. Public configuration

Schema for the public configuration file looks like:

• check_disk: (boolean) whether or not to check disk
• repair_disk: (boolean, string) whether or not to repair disk, disk name

{
  "check_disk": "true",
  "repair_disk": "true, user-disk-name"
}

1.2. Protected configuration

Schema for the protected configuration file looks like this:

• username: (required, string) the name of the user
• password: (optional, string) the password of the user
• ssh_key: (optional, string) the public key of the user
• reset_ssh: (optional, boolean) whether or not reset the ssh
• remove_user: (optional, string) the user name to remove
• expiration: (options, string) expiration of the account, defaults to never, e.g. 2016-01-01.

{
  "username": "<username>",
  "password": "<password>",
  "ssh_key": "<cert-contents>",
  "reset_ssh": true,
  "remove_user": "<username-to-remove>",
  "expiration": "<yyyy-mm-dd>"
}

ssh_key supports both ssh-rsa and .pem format.

• If your public key is in ssh-rsa format, for example, ssh-rsa XXXXXXXX, you can use:

  "ssh_key": "ssh-rsa XXXXXXXX"
  

• If your public key is in .pem format, use the following UNIX command to convert the .pem file to a value that can be passed in a JSON string:

  awk 'NF {sub(/\r/, ""); printf "%s\\n",$0;}' myCert.pem
  

  You can use:

  "ssh_key": "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX\n-----END CERTIFICATE-----"
  

2. Deploying the Extension to a VM

You can deploy it using Azure CLI, Azure Powershell and ARM template.

NOTE: Creating VM in Azure has two deployment model: Classic and Resource Manager. In diffrent models, the deploying commands have different syntaxes. Please select the right one in section 2.1 and 2.2 below.

2.1. Using Azure CLI

Before deploying VMAccess Extension, you should configure your protected.json (in section 1.2 above).

2.1.1 Classic

The Classic mode is also called Azure Service Management mode. You can change to it by running:

$ azure config mode asm

You can deploying VMAccess Extension by running:

$ azure vm extension set <vm-name> \
VMAccessForLinux Microsoft.OSTCExtensions <version> \
--private-config-path protected.json

In the command above, you can change version with "*" to use latest version available, or "1.*" to get newest version that does not introduce non- breaking schema changes. To learn the latest version available, run:

$ azure vm extension list

2.1.2 Resource Manager

You can change to Azure Resource Manager mode by running:

$ azure config mode arm

You can deploying VMAccess Extension by running:

$ azure vm extension set <resource-group> <vm-name> \
VMAccessForLinux Microsoft.OSTCExtensions <version> \
--private-config-path protected.json

NOTE: In ARM mode, azure vm extension list is not available for now.

In ARM mode, there is another specific and simple command to reset your password.

$ azure vm reset-access [options] <resource-group> <name>

NOTE: Currently, only public key PEM file is supported for azure vm reset-access. It's filed as an issue.

2.2. Using Azure Powershell

2.2.1 Classic

You can login to your Azure account (Azure Service Management mode) by running:

Add-AzureAccount

You can deploying VMAccess Extension by running:

$VmName = '<vm-name>'
$vm = Get-AzureVM -ServiceName $VmName -Name $VmName

$ExtensionName = 'VMAccessForLinux'
$Publisher = 'Microsoft.OSTCExtensions'
$Version = '<version>'

$PublicConf = '{}'
$PrivateConf = '{
  "username": "<username>",
  "password": "<password>",
  "ssh_key": "<cert-contents>",
  "reset_ssh": true|false,
  "remove_user": "<username-to-remove>"
}'

Set-AzureVMExtension -ExtensionName $ExtensionName -VM $vm `
  -Publisher $Publisher -Version $Version `
  -PrivateConfiguration $PrivateConf -PublicConfiguration $PublicConf |
  Update-AzureVM

2.2.2 Resource Manager

You can login to your Azure account (Azure Resource Manager mode) by running:

Login-AzureRmAccount

Click HERE to learn more about how to use Azure PowerShell with Azure Resource Manager.

You can deploying VMAccess Extension by running:

$RGName = '<resource-group-name>'
$VmName = '<vm-name>'
$Location = '<location>'

$ExtensionName = 'VMAccessForLinux'
$Publisher = 'Microsoft.OSTCExtensions'
$Version = '<version>'

$PublicConf = '{}'
$PrivateConf = '{
  "username": "<username>",
  "password": "<password>",
  "ssh_key": "<cert-contents>",
  "reset_ssh": true|false,
  "remove_user": "<username-to-remove>"
}'

Set-AzureRmVMExtension -ResourceGroupName $RGName -VMName $VmName -Location $Location `
  -Name $ExtensionName -Publisher $Publisher -ExtensionType $ExtensionName `
  -TypeHandlerVersion $Version -Settingstring $PublicConf -ProtectedSettingString $PrivateConf

2.3. Using ARM Template

{
  "type": "Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/extensions",
  "name": "<extension-deployment-name>",
  "apiVersion": "<api-version>",
  "location": "<location>",
  "dependsOn": [
    "[concat('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/', <vm-name>)]"
  ],
  "properties": {
    "publisher": "Microsoft.OSTCExtensions",
    "type": "VMAccessForLinux",
    "typeHandlerVersion": "1.4",
    "autoUpgradeMinorVersion": true,
    "settings": {},
    "protectedSettings": {
      "username": "<username>",
      "password": "<password>",
      "reset_ssh": true,
      "ssh_key": "<ssh-key>",
      "remove_user": "<username-to-remove>"
    }
  }
}

The sample ARM template is 201-vmaccess-on-ubuntu.

For more details about ARM template, please visit Authoring Azure Resource Manager templates.

3. Scenarios

3.1 Resetting the password

in the Public Settings

{
  "check_disk": "false"
}

VMAccessForLinux resets and restarts the SSH server if a password is specified. This is necessary if the VM was deployed with public key authentication because the SSH server is not configured to accept passwords. For this reason, the SSH server's configuration is reset to allow password authentication, and restarted to accept this new configuration. This behavior can be disabled by setting the reset_ssh value to false.

in the Protectect Settings

{
  "username": "currentusername",
  "password": "newpassword",
  "reset_ssh": "false"
}

3.2 Resetting the SSH key

{ 
  "username": "currentusername", 
  "ssh_key": "contentofsshkey"
}

3.3 Resetting the password and the SSH key

{
  "username": "currentusername",
  "ssh_key": "contentofsshkey",
  "password": "newpassword",
}

3.4 Creating a new sudo user account with the password

{
  "username": "newusername",
  "password": "newpassword"
}

3.4.1 Creating a new sudo user account with a password and expiration date.

{
  "username": "newusername",
  "password": "newpassword",
  "expiration": "2016-12-31"
}

3.5 Creating a new sudo user account with the SSH key

{
  "username": "newusername",
  "ssh_key": "contentofsshkey"
}

3.5.1 Creating a new sudo user account with the SSH key

{
  "username": "newusername",
  "ssh_key": "contentofsshkey",
  "expiration": "2016-12-31"
}

3.6 Resetting the SSH configuration

{
  "reset_ssh": true
}

3.7 Removing an existing user

{
  "remove_user": "usertoberemoveed",
}

3.8 Checking added disks on VM

{
    "check_disk": "true"
}

3.9 Fix added disks on a VM

{
    "repair_disk": "true",
    "disk_name": "userdisktofix"
}

Supported Linux Distributions

• Ubuntu 12.04 and higher
• CentOS 6.5 and higher
• Oracle Linux 6.4.0.0.0 and higher
• openSUSE 13.1 and higher
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3 and higher

Debug

• The status of the extension is reported back to Azure so that user can see the status on Azure Portal
• The operation log of the extension is /var/log/azure/<extension-name>/<version>/extension.log file.