Month: December 2016

In the series of articles about ARM template, we will learn to create a template to secure a custom domain with SSL.

Via the Azure portal you can create an SSL binding with Azure App Service. When selecting SSL certificates in an App Service then Add binding, you can bind a custom domain with a certificate.

Today we will discover how to manage this operation via an Azure Resource Manager template. Our ARM template will be created in a new Azure Resource Group deployment project in Visual Studio.

Creation

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "websiteName": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "websiteCustomDomainName": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "certificateThumbprint": {
      "type": "string"
    }
  }
  ...
}

• websiteName: the name of the azure app service such as myappname.azurewebsites.net.
• websiteCustomDomainName: the name of the custom domain such as mycustomdomain.com.
• certificateThumbprint: the thumbprint of the certificate to bind such as 22XXBE10XXE5D2DBAD29DXXXX7.

Now we will declare the resources of the ARM template:

{
  ...
  "resources": [
    {
      "apiVersion": "2015-08-01",
      "name": "[parameters('websiteName')]",
      "type": "Microsoft.Web/sites",
      "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
      "properties": {
        "hostNameSslStates": [
          {
            "name": "[parameters('websiteCustomDomainName')]",
            "sslState": "SniEnabled",
            "thumbprint": "[parameters('certificateThumbprint')]",
            "toUpdate": true
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
  ...
}

We can pay attention to several things here:

• The SSL binding is made via a property of the website named: hostNameSslStates.
• One or multiple hostNameSslStates can be declared.
• Each hostNameSslState have name property corresponding to the custom domain name and thumbprint property corresponding to the certificate thumbprint that will be binded.

Example of use

The ARM template is now ready, let’s open a Windows PowerShell and try it:

.\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1 -ResourceGroupName 'MyResourceGroupName' -ResourceGroupLocation 'canadaeast' -TemplateFile '.\azuredeploy.json'

...

Resource Microsoft.Web/sites 'myappname' provisioning status is succeeded

If everything goes well, you should see the same kind of message as above.

To go further

To be able to perform the binding operation you first need to add the custom domain name to the app as seen in a previous article. If the custom domain is not added first you’ll get the following error message:

Resource Microsoft.Web/sites ‘myappname’ failed with message ‘Hostname ‘mycustomdomain.com’ does not exist’.

Summary

We have seen how to create an ARM template that will create an SSL binding to an app custom domain in Azure App Service.

You can download the example solution here:

Download full sources

Or

Browse the GitHub repository

Please feel free to comment or contact me if you have any question about this article.

In this article we will create an ARM template that will allow to add a custom domain to a web app, mobile app, or API app in Azure App Service.

With Azure App Service it’s easy to add a custom domain via the portal. Everything is well described in the Azure documentation on the Map a custom domain name to an Azure app page.

Today we will focus on creating an Azure Resource Manager template to easily add a custom domain to an app. For our ARM template to work properly, it is first required to create the DNS record and the website.

Creation

Let’s declare the parameters of the ARM template:

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2015-01-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "websiteName": {
      "type": "string"
    },
    "websiteCustomDomainName": {
      "type": "string"
    }
  }
  ...
}

• websiteName: the name of the azure app service such as myappname.azurewebsites.net.
• websiteCustomDomainName: the name of the custom domain such as mycustomdomain.com.

Now we will declare the resources of the ARM template:

{
  ...
  "resources": [
    {
      "apiVersion": "2015-08-01",
      "name": "[concat(parameters('websiteName'),'/',parameters('websiteCustomDomainName'))]",
      "type": "Microsoft.Web/sites/hostNameBindings",
      "location": "[resourceGroup().location]",
      "properties": {
        "domainId": null,
        "hostNameType": "Verified",
        "siteName": "parameters('websiteName')"
      }
    }
  ]
  ...
}

• The custom domain is declared with the following type: Microsoft.Web/sites/hostNameBindings.
• The name of the resource is a concatenation of the website name and the custom domain name.

Example of use

The ARM template is now ready, let’s open a Windows PowerShell and try it:

.\Deploy-AzureResourceGroup.ps1 -ResourceGroupName 'MyResourceGroupName' -ResourceGroupLocation 'canadaeast' -TemplateFile '.\azuredeploy.json'

...

Resource Microsoft.Web/sites/hostNameBindings 'myappname/mycustomdomain.com' provisioning status is succeeded

If everything goes well, you should see the same kind of message as above.

To go further

If the DNS record is not created when deploying the template you’ll get the following error message:

A CNAME record pointing from mycustomdomain.com to myappname.azurewebsites.net was not found. Alternative record awverify.mycustomdomain.com to awverify.myappname.azurewebsites.net was not found either.

Summary

We have seen how to create an ARM template that will add a custom domain in Azure App Service.

You can download the example solution here:

Download full sources

Or

Browse the GitHub repository

Please feel free to comment or contact me if you have any question about this article.