Category Archives: Azure

Accessing Azure Serial Console for Windows (Preview)

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For absolute ages now we have been crying out loud to have some sort of serial access to Azure VM’s. Now, this request has been fulfilled and the Special Administrative Console (SAC) is available in preview for Windows and Linux guests! Windows images on Azure do not have Special Administrative Console (SAC) enabled by default (see below). SAC is supported on server versions of Windows but is not available on client versions like Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 7 etc.

To enable Serial console for Windows Virtual Machines please use the following steps:

  • Connect to your Windows virtual machine via Remote Desktop
  • From an Administrative command prompt run the following commands:

    • Accessing_Azure_Serial_Console_for_Windows_(Preview)_1

  • Reboot the system for the SAC console to be enabled

    • To access the SAC head over to Serial console (Preview) item on Azure Portal and get greeted with the following:

    Accessing_Azure_Serial_Console_for_Windows_(Preview)_2

    How very awesome! 🙂

    Generating Azure Management Certificate for Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 3.1

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    If you’re about to upload Hyper-V or VMware vSphere virtual machine(s) to Microsoft Azure you need to properly configure the connection in Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter.

    Subscription ID (which everyone should hopefully know), as well as Certificate Thumbprint are required to make this happen. Subscription ID can be retrieved either via the management portal or Get-AzureSubscription commandlet but Certificate Thumbprint is not so easy.

    Here is the MVMC screen I’m on about:

    Generating_Azure_Management_Certificate_for_Microsoft_Virtual_Machine_Converter_1

    If you have connected to your Azure subscription in the past using Powershell, chances are you already have the certificate that’s required. In my case, I like to keep things separated so thought it would be best to generate a new cert and use that cert specifically for MVMC related tasks.
    Continue reading →