Complete monitoring of Windows Azure Web site with Kudu Dashboard

Editorial Staff Note: This article is written by Amit Apple, a software developer for the Windows Azure Web site team.

If you want to understand and personally participate in computing resource management, you'll be glad to hear that the Windows Azure Web site now offers some very useful online tools to help you do something extraordinary. These tools have been integrated into your site's Kudu dashboard (also known as the Web Site control management (SCM) dashboard), and now let's look at these tools together.

To enter the Kudu meter meal, simply use your favorite Internet browser to access the https://{site name}.scm.azurewebsites.net (in other words, precede the site name with the. SCM). Credentials are required to enter the dashboard and the credentials are the same as your deployment credentials. If you have never set up deployment credentials, you can open the Web site dashboard in the Azure portal, and then click Set up deployment credentials. If you already have deployment credentials but forgot to do so, you can reset using the dashboard:

Once you have entered your credentials, you are ready to enter the Kudu dashboard. Previously, the dashboard was used only for waws Git deployment, and now contains a variety of tools that can be used to manage, monitor, and debug Web sites.

Note: Kudu is actually an open source project where you can view sources from GitHub, including more Wiki articles, and bugs or request new features.

Kudu Dashboard Home

On the Dashboard home page, you can view the current build number of kudu, with links to different tool pages listed at the top of the home page. The rest API lists the rest API links provided by Kudu:

Note: Because the return value of the REST API is in JSON format, if you use Chrome, you can easily browse the API using plug-in tools such as Jsonview

Environment

In the Environment page, you can view information about the current environment in which your Web site "sees" it. This includes general system information, application settings, environment variables, paths, HTTP headers, and server variables:

Note: If the page includes a connection string section, the connection string listed may not be visible to the Web site.

Debug console

This is the core value that Kudu provides for Azure Web site management. The Debug console page actually contains 2 useful tools:

1. The Web site's File Explorer allows you to view site content, download files or entire folders, delete files or folders, edit files, and even upload files by dragging and dropping them. When you download a folder from File Explorer, you are delivered a ZIP file that contains the entire folder structure.

2. The remote terminal of the Web site allows you to run commands that can be run against a Web site in the Cmd.exe process. For example, you can run any commands from simple (dir or CD) to Advanced (Git clean and npm/nuget install). The terminal allows you to learn more about the limitations of the sandbox (where the web site runs). Note that for ease of use, the current directory between the file explorer and the terminal is synchronized.

For more information about debugging terminals and other Kudu related information, please visit my blog.

Diagnostic dumps

A diagnostic dump is a link that generates a ZIP file that contains part of a Web site log, which helps you investigate the problem. In fact, Microsoft support may ask you to generate such a dump when investigating issues related to deployment options such as Git and Dropbox.

Log flow

When you click the Log Flow link, it appears that nothing has been done, but the listener for the LogFiles directory is actually started, so any logs written here will be displayed. Of course, if the site is completely idle, nothing will happen, but if the site is active, once the log buffer fills up, the log line begins to appear:

Note: Clicking this link also causes the Application log (in error mode) to continue for 12 hours to log to the file system. This feature can be turned off from the Azure portal.

Website Hooks

Site hooking is a publish/subscribe mechanism that enables you to publish events that all Subscribers to this event can obtain. Only one type of event, the post-deployment event, is currently supported. When you perform a Git (or dropbox/mercurial) deployment, kudu invokes the post-deployment event, whether it succeeds or fails:

Currently, we use this feature by integrating with a service called Zapier, which allows users to subscribe to this event and invoke multiple types of actions, such as sending e-mail, dialing a phone number, sending tweets, and so on. You can learn more in this article.

In short, the Kudu dashboard is one of the most powerful and flexible extensions of Azure's Web site to help you monitor your site in all directions. We hope that you take full advantage of this function to achieve efficient and successful deployment!