Error: IIS Website not listening on 0.0.0.0:443

We had this situation other day with one of the IIS websites. We were troubleshooting SSL on the site, and after that we were able to resolve that SSL issue. However, we found that the site only works from within the server. But from outside, we were getting connection refused. We checked and re-checked certificates, certificate trust store, windows firewall rules, event logs and firewall logs, SNI, bindings but still same issue.

While checking ports, we observed that port 443 is in listening state only for IP address 127.0.0.1 but not for 0.0.0.0 (Note that 0.0.0.0 means all possible IP address,  only ipv4). So it would require to be listening on the same, so that clients can connect to it. Continue reading “Error: IIS Website not listening on 0.0.0.0:443” →

Install PowerShell Modules on hosted agent in VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services)

Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) is popular tool of choice for various purposes where product is heavily dependent on Microsoft technologies like .NET, Azure, etc. It does lot of work such as Source code management, Building CI/CD pipelines, Package Management, Agile Issue tracking, etc. It is a cloud hosted service offering from Microsoft.

Hosted agent is a build agent that is provided by Microsoft for build and continuous integration purposes. However, you don’t have much control over the configuration of the hosted agent. It comes with most of tools you would normally require for building your source code. Now, when building PowerShell, it will come with latest version of PowerShell, so you can use built in package management cmdlets like Install-Module. Occasionally, you would need to install custom PowerShell modules such as SqlServer (Formerly known as SQLPS). Continue reading “Install PowerShell Modules on hosted agent in VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services)” →

Understand Syntax of Azure Resource Manager (or ARM) Templates

The infrastructure for an application generally consists of many components. It consists of an application code itself, a server somewhere to run that code (typically a virtual machine), a storage to hold the data, a database and a network. You may also want to have integration with 3rd party services. So in order for your application to work, either you want to have all this in place, or none at all. Same is true whenever you would want to deploy your application in Microsoft Azure. Azure Resource Manager or ARM is a way to manage all interdependent parts as one resource group. You can deploy, update or delete all the resources required for your application to work.

With Azure Resource Manager, you can create a template that defines all the interdependent parts required for your application. This template is defined using JSON format. See more details on ARM templates here and about JSON here. In this blog post, we’ll understand the syntax to create ARM templates. Continue reading “Understand Syntax of Azure Resource Manager (or ARM) Templates” →

VSTS Azure SQL Database Deployment task keeps failing with Error: Login failed for user

The task is used to deploy Azure SQL Database to an existing Azure SQL Server, either by using DACPACs or SQL Server scripts. The DACPACs are deployed using SqlPackage.exe and the SQL Server scripts are deployed using the Invoke-Sqlcmd cmdlet. DACPACs and SqlPackage.exe and Invoke-Sqlcmd cmdlet provides for fine-grained control over the database creation and upgrades, including upgrades for schema, triggers, stored procedures, roles, users, extended properties etc. Using the task, multiple different properties can be set to ensure that the database is created or upgraded properly.  Continue reading “VSTS Azure SQL Database Deployment task keeps failing with Error: Login failed for user” →

Identify outgoing Azure App Service IP address

Outgoing IP address for Azure App service are different than the incoming IP address. To clarify the difference, the incoming IP address (as the name would indicate) identify the IP address using which data could be sent to App Service. This is what you would see when you would typically do DNS resolution for the App Service. Outgoing IP address identify IP address which would be used when sending data from Azure App service to the outside world. You may need this info because you may need to protect your environment from threats or white-list certain requests.

To identify outgoing Azure App Service IP address, we can simply navigate to the https://portal.azure.com and then go to the app service in reference. Continue reading “Identify outgoing Azure App Service IP address” →

List of most used linux commands for various purposes

I have found some time to sit together and make a list of most used linux commands by me on a personal basis. I’m sharing the same over here (this in no way intends to be a complete list or reference list, so please don’t feel offensive). I hope you can find the same useful:

System Information

dmesg (boot message)
dmesg | less (view line by line)

sudo lshw (complete hardware info about computer!)
uname -a (server info)
cat /etc/*release (OS)
df -hT (mounted file systems)
mount -l (lists all mounted filesystems)
env | sort (environmental variables) Continue reading “List of most used linux commands for various purposes” →

Understand what Azure ARM templates are

The infrastructure for an application is typically made up of many components – a server to execute and respond to all calls, a storage mechanism to handle all I/O (input/output) , some kind of networking mechanism and finally off course, your application. Your application may be a standalone application with or without any database support and with or without any 3rd party integration services. You don’t generally want to see these components as separate entities or you may be (depending upon your background in Information Technology Sector) .

Generally, if you are a consumer, all you are concerned about is to consume how services available by a particular piece of the application. Continue reading “Understand what Azure ARM templates are” →