Diagnostics | devMobile's blog

This project is now live on Hackster.IO and github.com with sample *duino, Devduino and Netduino clients. While building the AdaFruit.IO field gateway, Azure IOT Hub field gateways and sample clients I changed the structure of the message payload and spent a bit of time removing non-core functionality and code.

The diagnostics logging code was refactored several times and after reading this reference on docs.Microsoft.com I settled on the published approach.

I considered using the built in Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application data class but this would have made configuration in the field hard for most of the targeted users school students & IT departments.

I have the application running at my house and it has proved pretty robust, last week I though it had crashed because the telemetry data stopped for about 20 minutes. I had a look at the Device portal and it was because Windows 10 IoT core had downloaded some updates, applied them and then rebooted automatically (as configured).

I put a socket on the Raspberry PI nRF24L01 Shield rather than soldering the module to the board so that I could compare the performance of the Low and High power modules. The antenna end of the high power module tends to droop so I put a small piece of plastic foam underneath to prop them up.

I had code to generate an empty JSON configuration but I removed that as it added complexity compared to putting a sample in the github repository.

I considered using a binary format (the nRF24L01 max message length is 32 bytes) but the code required to make it sufficiently flexible rapidly got out of hand and as most of my devices didn’t have a lot of sensors (battery/solar powered *duinos) and it wasn’t a major hassle to send another message so I removed it.

I need to tidy up the project and remove the unused Visual Assets and have a look at the automated update support.

In a previous post I wrote about configuring the Enterprise Library V6 to work with Azure Diagnostics. There have been significant changes (detailed in this very helpful post) to the way the Azure Diagnostics infrastructure works for Azure SDK Versions 2.4/2.5. If the diagnostics infrastructure is not properly configured there will be no WADLogs tables created and/or trace information logged.

The following steps provision diagnostics for a Azure web role or worker role. This “cheat sheet” assumes you already have the Azure Service Management Cmdlets installed.

Add-AzureAccount – This will prompt for Azure credentials

Get-AzureSubscription –Display details about your subscription(s)

SubscriptionId : 15daec19-f6e9-403c-8652-1234567890123
SubscriptionName : MyCompany
Environment : AzureCloud
DefaultAccount : me@mycompany.co.nz
IsDefault : False
IsCurrent : False
TenantId : e07af3b3-10c2-49a5-97cc-123456789012
CurrentStorageAccountName :
SubscriptionId : eba7ed1c-5503-4349-bcc7-123456789012
SubscriptionName : YourCompany
Environment : AzureCloud
DefaultAccount : you@yourcompany.co.nz
IsDefault : True
IsCurrent : True
TenantId : e07af3b3-10c2-49a5-97cc-1234567890
CurrentStorageAccountName :
…

If you have more than one Azure subscription you will need to select the one you want to use.

Select-AzureSubscription -Current -SubscriptionName “MyCompany” (beware names are case sensitive)

Get-AzureService – Displays a list of your Azure services

ServiceName : myDemoApp
Url : https://management.core.windows.net/eba7ed1c-5503-4349-bcc7-123456789012/services/hostedservices/myDemoApp
Label : myDemoApp
Description :
Location : Australia Southeast
AffinityGroup :
Status : Created
ExtendedProperties : {[ResourceGroup, myDemoApp], [ResourceLocation, Australia Southeast]}
DateModified : 7/01/2016 7:02:44 p.m.
DateCreated : 28/12/2015 6:23:44 p.m.
ReverseDnsFqdn :
WebWorkerRoleSizes : {A5, A6, A7, ExtraLarge, ExtraSmall, Large, Medium, Small, Standard_D1, Standard_D1_v2, Standard_D11, Standard_D11_v2, Standard_D12, Standard_D12_v2, Standard_D13,
Standard_D13_v2, Standard_D14, Standard_D14_v2, Standard_D2, Standard_D2_v2, Standard_D3, Standard_D3_v2, Standard_D4, Standard_D4_v2, Standard_D5_v2}
VirtualMachineRoleSizes : {A5, A6, A7, Basic_A0, Basic_A1, Basic_A2, Basic_A3, Basic_A4, ExtraLarge, ExtraSmall, Large, Medium, Small, Standard_D1, Standard_D1_v2, Standard_D11,
Standard_D11_v2, Standard_D12, Standard_D12_v2, Standard_D13, Standard_D13_v2, Standard_D14, Standard_D14_v2, Standard_D2, Standard_D2_v2, Standard_D3,
Standard_D3_v2, Standard_D4, Standard_D4_v2, Standard_D5_v2}
OperationDescription : Get-AzureService
OperationId : 73d37e69-d3d8-6769-94a2-123456789012
OperationStatus : Succeeded

Get-AzureRole -ServiceName “myDemoApp”

RoleName : WebRole
InstanceCount : 1
DeploymentID : cb4e439907774090be8d123456789012
ServiceName : myDemoApp
OperationDescription : Get-AzureRole
OperationId : 85233c60-f39a-6c01-b51a-123456789012
OperationStatus : Succeeded

RoleName : WorkerRole
InstanceCount : 1
DeploymentID : cb4e439907774090be8d123456789012
ServiceName : myDemoApp
OperationDescription : Get-AzureRole
OperationId : 85233c60-f39a-6c01-b51a-123456789012
OperationStatus : Succeeded

I then modified the role diagnostics config file (diagnostics.wadcfgx) by removing

<PrivateConfig xmlns=”http://schemas.microsoft.com/ServiceHosting/2010/10/DiagnosticsConfiguration”>
<StorageAccount endpoint=”” />
</PrivateConfig>
<IsEnabled>true</IsEnabled> – Not certain about this

I then uploaded it with the following powershell script
$storage_name = “entlib”
$key = “Storage key goes here==”
$config_path=”C:\..\diagnostics.xml”
$service_name=”myDemoApp”
$storageContext = New-AzureStorageContext -StorageAccountName $storage_name -StorageAccountKey $key
Set-AzureServiceDiagnosticsExtension -StorageContext $storageContext -DiagnosticsConfigurationPath $config_path -ServiceName $service_name -Slot Production -Role WebRole

Repeat for WorkerRole and WebRole

devMobile's blog

Random wanderings through Azure and the .Net Micro Framework

Category Archives: Diagnostics

Azure IoT Hub nRF24L01 Windows 10 IoT Core Field Gateway

Enterprise Library V6 Logging with Azure SDK 2.8 and Azure Diagnostics 1.3