Ark Sidechain — Azure Quickstart

Your own customizable Sidechain and Explorer in < 20 minutes

A shout-out to Jarunik and his voter sponsorship program for this article!

This deployment method can be used to jump-start your journey to your own BridgeChain in the process outlined here by Alex Barnsley.

Pre-Requisites: Active Microsoft Azure account (Trial is OK) — and know how to connect to something via SSH (PuTTY for Windows)

End result:

- Ubuntu VM in Azure

- Azure PublicIP and Firewall configurations pre-built

- Your own SideChain node and Ark Explorer running in < 20 minutes

- Re-usable and customize-able deployment script

1. Virtual Machine Quick Deployment

Navigate to: https://github.com/davepinkawa/Ark-Azure

Click on the big blue “Deploy to Azure” button to be taken to Portal.Azure.com. Login with your account (Trial or not, either work).

README.md of the Github page

You should only need to input data for 3 empty fields (Resource Group, Admin Password, and DNS Label), but full details for this section:

Subscription — if not already on your current one.

Resource Group — ‘Create New’ only option that will work unless you wish to edit the template yourself.

Location — Trial availability varies by region. Select whichever you are permitted access to via trial, or if paid, any will do.

Admin Username — This is the account you will sign into the server with.

Admin Password — Secure string and has high complexity requirements.

Dns Label Prefix — This is the unique DNS name that you are giving to this VM. It is mandatory that this name be unique in the Location Datacenter as a whole (It will self-check after input) **Remember this for easy SSH

Ubuntu OS Version — Only option is 16.04-LTS at this time.

ARKNSG Name — This is the name for the firewall group to permit SSH as well as Ark Node/Explorer port access to this VM.

A typical fully filled out template

Currently, the VM produced is a Standard_A1 size VM. This is a very low-cost resource VM for tutorial purposes (Can be scaled-up after deployment if desired or via template adjustment)

Click Agree, and Purchase to begin deployment. Should take 5–10 minutes.

2. Connecting to VM + Ark Deployer

You are welcome to explore your new VM’s Overview, etc, by clicking on ‘Resource Groups’ and finding your new group, and the VM inside. Lots of configuration items here.

If you do not remember your Public DNS name or IP address (For SSH), Go to: Resource Groups > My-Ark-RG > MyUbuntuVM > Overview. This has all the general information you will need.