Name	Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
parent directory ..
azure	azure
oneoff	oneoff
patch	patch
scheduled	scheduled
test	test
HandlerManifest.json	HandlerManifest.json
README.md	README.md
check.py	check.py
handler.py	handler.py
references	references

OSPatching Extension

Allow the owner of the Azure VM to configure the Linux VM patching schedule cycle. And the actual patching operation is automated based on the pre-configured schedule.

Lastest version is 2.0.

You can read the User Guide below.

Automate Linux VM OS Updates Using OSPatching Extension (outdated, needs to update)

OSPatching Extension can:

Patch the OS automatically as a scheduled task
Patch the OS automatically as a one-off
it can be stopped before the actual patching operation
the status of VM can be checked by user-defined scripts, which can be stored locally, in github or Azure Storage

User Guide

1. Configuration schema

1.1. Public configuration

Schema for the public configuration file looks like this:

Name	Description	Value Type	Default Value
disabled	Flag to disable this extension	required, boolean	false
stop	Flag to cancel the OS update process	required, boolean	false
rebootAfterPatch	The reboot behavior after patching	optional, string	RebootIfNeed
category	Type of patches to install	optional, string	Important
installDuration	The allowed total time for installation	optional, string	01:00
oneoff	Patch the OS immediately	optional, boolean	false
intervalOfWeeks	The update frequency (in weeks)	optional, string	1
dayOfWeek	The patching date (of the week)You can specify multiple days in a week	optional, string	Everyday
startTime	Start time of patching	optional, string	03:00
distUpgradeList	Path to a repo list which for which a full upgrade (e.g. dist-upgrade in Ubuntu) will occur	optional, string	/etc/apt/sources.list.d/custom.list
vmStatusTest	Including `local`, `idleTestScript` and `healthyTestScript`	optional, object
local	Flag to assign the location of user-defined scripts	optional, boolean	false
idleTestScript	If `local` is true, it is the contents of the idle test script. Otherwise, it is the uri of the idle test script.	optional, string
healthyTestScript	If `local` is true, it is the contents of the healthy test script. Otherwise, it is the uri of the healthy test script.	optional, string

{
  "disabled": false,
  "stop": false,
  "rebootAfterPatch": "RebootIfNeed|Required|NotRequired|Auto",
  "category": "Important|ImportantAndRecommended",
  "installDuration": "<hr:min>",
  "oneoff": false,
  "intervalOfWeeks": "<number>",
  "dayOfWeek": "Sunday|Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday|Everyday",
  "startTime": "<hr:min>",
  "distUpgradeList": "</etc/apt/sources.list.d/custom.list>",
  "vmStatusTest": {
    "local": false,
    "idleTestScript": "<path_to_idletestscript>",
    "healthyTestScript": "<path_to_healthytestscript>"
  }
}

1.2. Protected configuration

Schema for the protected configuration file looks like this:

storageAccountName: (optional, string) the name of storage account
storageAccountKey: (optional, string) the access key of storage account

{
  "storageAccountName": "<storage-account-name>",
  "storageAccountKey": "<storage-account-key>"
}

If the vmStatusTest scripts are stored in the private Azure Storage, you should provide storageAccountName and storageAccountKey. You can get these two values from Azure Portal.

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 OSPatching Extension, you should configure your public.json and protected.json (in section 1.1 and 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 OSPatching Extension by running:

$ azure vm extension set <vm-name> \
OSPatchingForLinux Microsoft.OSTCExtensions <version> \
--public-config-path public.json  \
--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

You can also omit --private-config-path if you do not want to configure those settings.

2.1.2 Resource Manager

You can change to Azure Resource Manager mode by running:

$ azure config mode arm

You can deploying OSPatching Extension by running:

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

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

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 OSPatching Extension by running:

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

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

$idleTestScriptUri = '<path_to_idletestscript>'
$healthyTestScriptUri = '<path_to_healthytestscript>'

$PublicConfig = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject @{
    "disabled" = $false;
    "stop" = $true|$false;
    "rebootAfterPatch" = "RebootIfNeed|Required|NotRequired|Auto";
    "category" = "Important|ImportantAndRecommended";
    "installDuration" = "<hr:min>";
    "oneoff" = $true|$false;
    "intervalOfWeeks" = "<number>";
    "dayOfWeek" = "Sunday|Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday|Everyday";
    "startTime" = "<hr:min>";
    "vmStatusTest" = (@{
        "local" = $false;
        "idleTestScript" = $idleTestScriptUri;
        "healthyTestScript" = $healthyTestScriptUri
    })
}

# Optional
# If you use azure storage, you have to offer the key
$PrivateConfig = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject @{
    "storageAccountName" = "<storage_account_name>";
    "storageAccountKey" = "<storage_account_key>"
}

Set-AzureVMExtension -ExtensionName $ExtensionName -VM $vm `
  -Publisher $Publisher -Version $Version `
  -PrivateConfiguration $PrivateConfig -PublicConfiguration $PublicConfig |
  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 OSPatching Extension by running:

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

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

$PublicConf = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject @{
    "disabled" = $false;
    "stop" = $true|$false;
    "rebootAfterPatch" = "RebootIfNeed|Required|NotRequired|Auto";
    "category" = "Important|ImportantAndRecommended";
    "installDuration" = "<hr:min>";
    "oneoff" = $true|$false;
    "intervalOfWeeks" = "<number>";
    "dayOfWeek" = "Sunday|Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday|Everyday";
    "startTime" = "<hr:min>";
    "vmStatusTest" = (@{
        "local" = $false;
        "idleTestScript" = $idleTestScriptUri;
        "healthyTestScript" = $healthyTestScriptUri
    })
}

# Optional
# If you use azure storage, you have to offer the key
$PrivateConf = ConvertTo-Json -InputObject @{
    "storageAccountName" = "<storage_account_name>";
    "storageAccountKey" = "<storage_account_key>"
}

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": "OSPatchingForLinux",
    "typeHandlerVersion": "2.0",
    "settings": {
      "disabled": false,
      "stop": false,
      "rebootAfterPatch": "RebootIfNeed|Required|NotRequired|Auto",
      "category": "Important|ImportantAndRecommended",
      "installDuration": "<hr:min>",
      "oneoff": false,
      "intervalOfWeeks": "<number>",
      "dayOfWeek": "Sunday|Monday|Tuesday|Wednesday|Thursday|Friday|Saturday|Everyday",
      "startTime": "<hr:min>",
      "vmStatusTest": {
        "local": false,
        "idleTestScript": "<path_to_idletestscript>",
        "healthyTestScript": "<path_to_healthytestscript>"
      }
    },
    "protectedSettings": {
      "storageAccountName": "<storage-account-name>",
      "storageAccountKey": "<storage-account-key>"
    }
  }
}

The sample ARM template is 201-ospatching-extension-on-ubuntu.

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

3. Scenarios

3.1 Setting up scheduled patching

For regular recurring patching, you can configure the schedule as the following. And you can modify existing patching configurations and re-enable it.

Public Settings

{
  "disabled": false,
  "stop": false,
  "rebootAfterPatch": "RebootIfNeed",
  "intervalOfWeeks": "1",
  "dayOfWeek": "Sunday|Wednesday",
  "startTime": "03:00",
  "category": "ImportantAndRecommended",
  "installDuration": "00:30"
}

No need to provide protected settings.

3.2 Setting up one-off patching

Public Settings

{
  "disabled": false,
  "stop": false,
  "rebootAfterPatch": "RebootIfNeed",
  "one-off": true,
  "category": "ImportantAndRecommended",
  "installDuration": "00:30"
}

No need to provide protected settings.

3.3 Stop the running patching

You can stop the OS updates for debugging. Once the “stop” parameter is set to “true”, the OS update will stop after the current update is finished.

Public Settings

{
  "disabled": false,
  "stop": true  
}

3.4 Test the idle before patching and the health after patching

Public Settings

{
  "disabled": false,
  "stop": false,
  "rebootAfterPatch": "RebootIfNeed",
  "category": "ImportantAndRecommended",
  "installDuration": "00:30",
  "oneoff": false,
  "intervalOfWeeks": "1",
  "dayOfWeek": "Sunday|Wednesday",
  "startTime": "03:00",
  "vmStatusTest": {
    "local": false,
    "idleTestScript": "<path_to_idletestscript>",
    "healthyTestScript": "<path_to_healthytestscript>"
  }
}

If the vmStatusTest scripts are stored in Azure Storage private containers, you have to provide the storageAccountName and storageAccountKey.

Protected Settings

{
  "storageAccountName": "MyAccount",
  "storageAccountKey": "Mykey"
}

3.5 Enable the extension repeatly

Enabling the extension with the exactly same configurations is unaccepted in current design. If you need to run scripts repeatly, you can add a timestamp.

"timestamp": 123456789

3.6 Disable the extension

If you want to switch to manual OS update temporarily, you can set the disable parameter to true which won't uninstall the OSPatching extension.

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
FreeBSD

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.

Known Issues

If the scheduled task can not run on some redhat distro, there may be a selinux-policy problem. Please refer to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=657104

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OSPatching

OSPatching

README.md

OSPatching Extension

User Guide

1. Configuration schema

1.1. Public configuration

1.2. Protected configuration

2. Deploying the Extension to a VM

2.1. Using Azure CLI

2.1.1 Classic

2.1.2 Resource Manager

2.2. Using Azure Powershell

2.2.1 Classic

2.2.2 Resource Manager

2.3. Using ARM Template

3. Scenarios

3.1 Setting up scheduled patching

3.2 Setting up one-off patching

3.3 Stop the running patching

3.4 Test the idle before patching and the health after patching

3.5 Enable the extension repeatly

3.6 Disable the extension

Supported Linux Distributions

Debug

Known Issues

Files

OSPatching

Directory actions

More options

Directory actions

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Latest commit

History

OSPatching

Folders and files

parent directory

README.md

OSPatching Extension

User Guide

1. Configuration schema

1.1. Public configuration

1.2. Protected configuration

2. Deploying the Extension to a VM

2.1. Using Azure CLI

2.1.1 Classic

2.1.2 Resource Manager

2.2. Using Azure Powershell

2.2.1 Classic

2.2.2 Resource Manager

2.3. Using ARM Template

3. Scenarios

3.1 Setting up scheduled patching

3.2 Setting up one-off patching

3.3 Stop the running patching

3.4 Test the idle before patching and the health after patching

3.5 Enable the extension repeatly

3.6 Disable the extension

Supported Linux Distributions

Debug

Known Issues