This guide explains how to install the OpenOps Docker Compose release on a newly created Azure VM.

You’ll need relevant permissions to create a new VM, edit its networking settings, and set up required permissions for Cloud Shell.

Initial deployment

Create a new virtual machine

  1. Navigate to Create a virtual machine in Azure.
  2. Name your machine and select the latest Ubuntu Server as the image. Choose a size with at least 2 CPUs and 8GB of RAM. Other settings can be left as default.
  3. Click Review + create at the bottom, then Create to create the machine. You will be asked to download the private key. You may see a warning about leaving port 22 (SSH) open. For production use, it’s recommended to open this port only to relevant IPs, depending on your network configuration. In this guide, we’re using CloudShell to connect to the machine, so the port needs to remain open.
  4. Once the machine is created, click Go to resource, then navigate to Networking > Network settings and Create port rule > Inbound port rule to set the required destination port to 80. You can open the port to everyone, to your personal IP address only, or to a preferred range. Click Add to create the rule.

Connect to the virtual machine with Cloud Shell

  1. Under Overview, select Connect and SSH using Azure CLI to open the Cloud Shell inside Azure Portal. After a quick validation and setup, CloudShell should open and connect to the machine.
  2. Ensure you’re using the Bash shell by running the following command (you may need to paste it using a right-click instead of Ctrl+V):
    [ -z "$BASH_VERSION" ] && exec bash
    

Download OpenOps release files

  1. Create a new directory and download the OpenOps release files:
    mkdir -p openops && cd openops && \
    wget https://github.com/openops-cloud/openops/releases/download/0.2.2/openops-dc-0.2.2.zip && \
    python3 -m zipfile -e openops-dc-0.2.2.zip . && cp -n .env.defaults .env
    
  2. Edit the application URL to use the machine’s public IP address:
    sed -i 's/http:\/\/localhost/http:\/\/'$(wget -4qO - https://ifconfig.io/ip)'/g' .env
    

Feel free to edit the .env file with vim or another text editor according to your needs.

Install Docker and start the containers

  1. Install Docker using Snap:
    sudo snap install docker
    
  2. Pull the images and run the Docker containers (rerun the pull command if you encounter a rate limit):
    sudo COMPOSE_PARALLEL_LIMIT=4 docker compose pull && sudo docker compose up -d
    

You can now access the application by navigating to the public IP address of your virtual machine, for example, http://20.20.20.20. The login credentials are configured in the .env file. If you haven’t changed them, the default username is admin@openops.com, and the password is please-change-this-password-1.

Getting credentials for Azure connections

See this guide.

Using Azure CLI in workflows: running with local credentials

It is possible to share your local Azure session with the OpenOps platform for local applications.

To do this, set the following environment variables in the .env file in the installation folder:

  • OPS_ENABLE_HOST_SESSION=true. This enables sharing of the host session with the platform container.
  • HOST_AZURE_CONFIG_DIR=/root/.azure. This defines the path to the host machine’s Azure configuration folder that will be shared with the platform container.

Before running OpenOps, log in to Azure from your VM:

sudo az login

TLS

For production usage, it’s recommended to enable TLS (HTTPS). You can achieve this by adding an Azure Application Gateway to serve traffic to your VM.

Without TLS, cloud templates may not load properly when using the Safari browser.

Updating OpenOps to a newer version

See Updating OpenOps.

Support

Feel free to join our Slack community if you have any questions or need help with the installation.