Monitoring and Troubleshooting in Azure CLI

📖 8.1 Why Monitor Azure Resources?

Monitoring helps you:

Benefit	Why It’s Important
Detect issues early	Spot problems before they cause downtime
Optimize performance	Track resource usage and adjust accordingly
Improve security	Detect suspicious activities
Audit changes	Track who made what changes and when

✅ Monitoring is proactive — it’s the key to maintaining a healthy Azure environment!

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📜 8.2 Viewing Activity Logs with Azure CLI

The Activity Log records operations on resources at the control plane (e.g., resource creation, deletion).

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🛠️ View Recent Activity Logs

bashCopyEditaz monitor activity-log list --output table

✅ Displays recent activities like create, delete, and update operations.

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Filter by Resource Group

bashCopyEditaz monitor activity-log list \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --output table

✅ Only shows activity in a specific Resource Group.

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Filter by Time

Get logs from the past hour:

bashCopyEditaz monitor activity-log list --start-time $(date -u -d '1 hour ago' +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ) --output table

✅ Useful for investigating recent changes.

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📊 8.3 Viewing Metrics for Resources

Azure Metrics provide near real-time data on resource performance.

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🛠️ List Available Metrics for a VM

bashCopyEditaz monitor metrics list-definitions \
  --resource /subscriptions/<sub-id>/resourceGroups/<rg-name>/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/<vm-name> \
  --output table

✅ Shows all available metrics for the VM (CPU usage, Disk IO, etc.).

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🛠️ Get CPU Usage Metrics

bashCopyEditaz monitor metrics list \
  --resource /subscriptions/<sub-id>/resourceGroups/<rg-name>/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/<vm-name> \
  --metric "Percentage CPU" \
  --interval PT1M \
  --output table

TimeStamp	Average
2025-04-05T14:00:00Z	12.5
2025-04-05T14:01:00Z	14.2

✅ See how busy your VM is!

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🩺 8.4 Diagnosing Virtual Machine Issues

When VMs act weird (fail to boot, slow down, crash), diagnostics are your friend.

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🛠️ Enable Boot Diagnostics

bashCopyEditaz vm boot-diagnostics enable \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name myVM

✅ Captures screenshots and logs during VM startup.

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🛠️ View Boot Diagnostics Info

bashCopyEditaz vm boot-diagnostics get-boot-log \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name myVM

✅ See the boot log and screenshot to help diagnose issues.

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⚙️ 8.5 Configuring Diagnostics Settings

Azure resources can send logs and metrics to:

• Log Analytics Workspace

• Storage Account

• Event Hub

✅ You can set this up with Azure CLI too!

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🛠️ Example: Send Diagnostics to a Log Analytics Workspace

bashCopyEditaz monitor diagnostic-settings create \
  --name myDiagnosticsSetting \
  --resource /subscriptions/<sub-id>/resourceGroups/<rg-name>/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/<vm-name> \
  --workspace <workspace-id> \
  --metrics '[{"category": "AllMetrics","enabled": true}]' \
  --logs '[{"category": "Administrative","enabled": true}]'

✅ Centralized logging = easier troubleshooting!

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🔥 8.6 Real-World Troubleshooting Example

Problem: You can't connect to your new Linux VM.

✅ Here’s a basic troubleshooting flow:

Step	CLI Command	Purpose
1	az vm show	Verify VM exists and is running
2	az network nic show	Check NIC (network interface) status
3	az network nsg rule list	Verify NSG allows SSH inbound (port 22)
4	az vm boot-diagnostics get-boot-log	Check if VM booted properly

If SSH port is blocked or the VM failed to boot — you’ll know fast.

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🛡️ 8.7 Best Practices for Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Best Practice	Why It Matters
Enable diagnostics from the start	Avoid scrambling during incidents
Send logs to Log Analytics	Centralized monitoring and analysis
Regularly review Activity Logs	Detect unauthorized or suspicious changes
Monitor key metrics (CPU, Disk)	Avoid outages from resource exhaustion
Script common troubleshooting tasks	Save time during incidents

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📝 Module 8 Summary

Topic	Key Points
View Activity Logs	az monitor activity-log list
Monitor Metrics	az monitor metrics list
Diagnose VMs	Boot diagnostics help fix startup problems
Configure Diagnostics Settings	Send logs/metrics to centralized locations
Troubleshooting best practices	Proactive monitoring saves time and resources