Preparing Azure Cloud Machines

What you need

Purpose

To set up Linux and Windows servers on Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing platform.

These Instructions are Out Of Date

I recommend using these instructions instead:

Preparing Azure Cloud Machines for Windows 11 and Debian 11

Creating an Azure for Students Account

In a Web browser, go to:

Azure for Students FAQ

Click Activate.

Follow the on-screen instructions to make your account. You'll need your .edu email address and a phone, but no credit card.

You'll end up at the Azure Education Hub, as shown below.

Creating a Virtual Machine

At the top left, click the three-bar "hamburger" icon.

Click "Virtual Machines", as shown below.

On the "Virtual machines" page, at the top left, click Add, "Virtual machine".

In the "Create a virtual machine" page, on the Basics tab, enter these values, as shown below.

At the bottom, click the blue "Review + create" button.

A warning appears, saying "You have set RDP port(s) open to the internet."

At the bottom, click the blue Create button.

After a few minutes, the deployment completes, as shown below.

At the bottom, click the blue "Go to resource" button.

You can see your IP address, as shown below.

Connect via RDP or SSH

For a Windows VM, use an RDP client to connect to that IP address, using the name and password you selected.

For Linux, connect via SSH.
For Debian, the SSH command looks like this:

ssh -i Downloads/Deb10Azure_key.pem azureuser@15.66.181.132

Setup Auto-Shutdown

This is important, to avoid wasting your free trial money.

In the "Microsoft Azure" web portal, scroll to the left to see the "CreateVM..." page, as shown below.

Click "Setup auto-shutdown". Turn the feature on. Click Save.

Checking your Balance

To see how much of your credit is left, go to:

https://www.microsoftazuresponsorships.com/

You see your balance, as shown below.

Posted 9-23-2021
Debian SSH command added 3-3-22