Windows Azure REST API MediaLink - windows

Question

I'm trying to use the API REST of Windows Azure for creating a virtual machine deployment. However, I've got a problem when trying to specify an OS image in the following XML file:
<Deployment xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure" xmlns:i="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<Name>SomeName</Name>
<DeploymentSlot>Production</DeploymentSlot>
<Label></Label>
<RoleList>
<Role i:type="PersistentVMRole">
<RoleName>SomeName</RoleName>
<OsVersion i:nil="true"/>
<RoleType>PersistentVMRole</RoleType>
<ConfigurationSets>
<ConfigurationSet i:type="WindowsProvisioningConfigurationSet">
<ConfigurationSetType>WindowsProvisioningConfiguration</ConfigurationSetType>
<ComputerName>SomeName</ComputerName>
<AdminPassword>XXXXXXXXXX</AdminPassword>
<EnableAutomaticUpdates>true</EnableAutomaticUpdates>
<ResetPasswordOnFirstLogon>false</ResetPasswordOnFirstLogon>
</ConfigurationSet>
<ConfigurationSet i:type="NetworkConfigurationSet">
<ConfigurationSetType>NetworkConfiguration</ConfigurationSetType>
<InputEndpoints>
<InputEndpoint>
<LocalPort>3389</LocalPort>
<Name>RemoteDesktop</Name>
<Protocol>tcp</Protocol>
</InputEndpoint>
</InputEndpoints>
</ConfigurationSet>
</ConfigurationSets>
<DataVirtualHardDisks/>
<Label></Label>
<OSVirtualHardDisk>
<MediaLink>¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿???????????????</MediaLink>
<SourceImageName>¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿??????????????????</SourceImageName>
</OSVirtualHardDisk>
</Role>
</RoleList>
</Deployment>`
I need the MediaLink (URI of the OS image) and the SourceImageName (Canonical name of the OS image). My question is, the web portal provides several PREDEFINED images but I cannot determine the URI and the canonical name of them. Will I be forced to create my own OS image and upload it to any of the storage services under my Windows Azure account?

Answer 1

To get these parameters, you could perform List OS Images Service Management API operation on your subscription.
UPDATE
Please discard some of my comments below (sorry about those). I was finally able to create a VM using REST API :). Here're some of the things:
<MediaLink> element should specify the URL of the VHD off of which your VM will be created. It has to be a URL in one of your storage account in the same subscription as your virtual machine cloud service. So for this, you could specify a URL like: https://[yourstorageaccount].blob.core.windows.net/[blobcontainer]/[filename].vhd where [blobcontainer] would be the name of the blob container where you would want the API to store the VHD while the [filename] is any name that you want to give to your VHD. What REST API does is that it copies the source image specified in the <SourceImageName> and saves it at the URI specified in the <MediaLink> element.
Make sure that your Service and Storage Account where your VHD will be stored are in the same data center/affinity group. Furthermore that data center should be able to support Virtual Machines. It turns out that not all data centers support Virtual Machines.
Order of XML element is of utmost importance. You move one element up or down would result in 400 error.
Based on my experimentation, here's the code:
private static void CreateVirtualMachineDeployment(string subscriptionId, X509Certificate2 cert, string cloudServiceName)
{
try
{
string uri = string.Format("https://management.core.windows.net/{0}/services/hostedservices/{1}/deployments", subscriptionId, cloudServiceName);
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(uri);
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "application/xml";
request.Headers.Add("x-ms-version", "2013-03-01");
request.ClientCertificates.Add(cert);
string requestPayload = #"<Deployment xmlns=""http://schemas.microsoft.com/windowsazure"" xmlns:i=""http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"">
<Name>[SomeName]</Name>
<DeploymentSlot>Production</DeploymentSlot>
<Label>[SomeLabel]</Label>
<RoleList>
<Role i:type=""PersistentVMRole"">
<RoleName>MyTestRole</RoleName>
<OsVersion i:nil=""true""/>
<RoleType>PersistentVMRole</RoleType>
<ConfigurationSets>
<ConfigurationSet i:type=""WindowsProvisioningConfigurationSet"">
<ConfigurationSetType>WindowsProvisioningConfiguration</ConfigurationSetType>
<ComputerName>[ComputerName]</ComputerName>
<AdminPassword>[AdminPassword - Ensure it's strong Password]</AdminPassword>
<AdminUsername>[Admin Username]</AdminUsername>
<EnableAutomaticUpdates>true</EnableAutomaticUpdates>
<ResetPasswordOnFirstLogon>false</ResetPasswordOnFirstLogon>
</ConfigurationSet>
<ConfigurationSet i:type=""NetworkConfigurationSet"">
<ConfigurationSetType>NetworkConfiguration</ConfigurationSetType>
<InputEndpoints>
<InputEndpoint>
<LocalPort>3389</LocalPort>
<Name>RemoteDesktop</Name>
<Protocol>tcp</Protocol>
</InputEndpoint>
</InputEndpoints>
</ConfigurationSet>
</ConfigurationSets>
<DataVirtualHardDisks/>
<Label></Label>
<OSVirtualHardDisk>
<MediaLink>https://[storageaccount].blob.core.windows.net/vhds/fb83b3509582419d99629ce476bcb5c8__Microsoft-SQL-Server-2012SP1-Web-CY13SU04-SQL11-SP1-CU3-11.0.3350.0.vhd</MediaLink>
<SourceImageName>fb83b3509582419d99629ce476bcb5c8__Microsoft-SQL-Server-2012SP1-Web-CY13SU04-SQL11-SP1-CU3-11.0.3350.0</SourceImageName>
</OSVirtualHardDisk>
</Role>
</RoleList>
</Deployment>";
byte[] content = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(requestPayload);
request.ContentLength = content.Length;
using (var requestStream = request.GetRequestStream())
{
requestStream.Write(content, 0, content.Length);
}
using (HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
{
}
}
catch (WebException webEx)
{
using (var streamReader = new StreamReader(webEx.Response.GetResponseStream()))
{
string result = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
Console.WriteLine(result);
}
}
}
Hope this helps!