The following limitations apply to SPS when you deploy it from the Microsoft Azure Marketplace.
-
Root login is not available on the console.
-
SSH access is only available after you have completed the Welcome Wizard.
-
Currently, the data that is entered during the provisioning phase (for example, the username and the IP address) of creating the virtual machine in Azure is not transferred to SPS. Therefore, only the data entered in the Welcome Wizard will be used.
-
By default, you can only use Physical interface 1 (eth0) of SPS, with a single IP address. Aside from changing the IP address of SPS, do not modify other interface-related settings (additional logical interfaces, IP forwarding, and so on) on the Basic Settings > Network page of SPS.
The number of interfaces you can use depends on the size of your Azure VM. If your VM allows you to use multiple interfaces, you can configure multiple interfaces in SPS. For details, see VM with multiple NICs.
-
The Seal the box functionality is not available.
-
The High Availability support of SPS was designed to work between two physical SPS appliances. This feature is not available in Azure environments. For further details, see the High Availability and redundancy in Microsoft Azure.
-
Due to Azure requirements, an additional 5-minute delay has been added to the boot process. This ensures that the root device appears in the system.
-
The size of the virtual disk in Azure is 100 GB, which you can increase. To increase the size of the virtual disk, see .
-
SPS currently cannot receive its IP address using DHCP. Make sure that:
-
The IP address you have configured in Azure and the IP address that you configure for SPS for the Physical interface 1 on the Networking settings part of the Welcome Wizard are the same. Otherwise, you will not be able to access SPS.
-
You set the internal IP static on the Network Interfaces tab of the Virtual Machine.
-
Do not assign a public IP address to SPS, use SPS as a component of your internal infrastructure. If you absolutely must configure Welcome Wizard from a publicly accessible IP address, note that SPS will be publicly accessible. If you assign a public IP to the web management interface, consider the following:
-
Select a complex passphrase.
-
Limit access to the management interface based on the source IP address, and make sure that brute-force protection for the administrator web login is enabled (they are enabled by default). For details, see .
-
Configure an email alert or SNMP trap for administrator logon events. For details, see and .
-
Forward the logs of SPS to a log server (for example, to a syslog-ng server, or an syslog-ng Store Box appliance) so that if the local logs are compromised, you still have an authentic copy of the original logs.
-
For security reasons, disable SSH access to SPS when it is not needed. Accessing the SPS host directly using SSH is not recommended or supported, except for troubleshooting purposes. If you enable SSH access, restrict the clients that can access SPS based on their source IP address, and make sure that brute-force protection is enabled (they are enabled by default). For details, see .
-
To prevent unauthorized access to the audit trail files recorded on SPS, configure proper access control rules for the user groups and encrypt every audit trail. If you use encryption, store your keys in the personal or in the temporary key store. For details, see ,
-
-
-
Upgrading SPS in Azure is the same as upgrading a physical appliance: you have to upload the firmware on the SPS web interface. For detailed instructions, see .