Enable the .NET Profiler for web apps on an Azure virtual machine

Install the Azure Diagnostics extension

1. Choose which ARM template to use:

   • VM
   • Virtual machine scale set

2. In the template, locate the resource of type extension.

3. In Visual Studio, go to the arm.json file in your ASP.NET Core application that was added when you installed the Application Insights SDK.

4. Add the resource type extension from the template to the arm.json file to set up a VM or virtual machine scale set with Azure Diagnostics.

5. Within the WadCfg tag, add your Application Insights connection string to MyApplicationInsightsProfilerSink.

   "WadCfg": {
     "SinksConfig": {
       "Sink": [
         {
           "name": "MyApplicationInsightsProfilerSink",
           "ApplicationInsightsProfiler": "YOUR_APPLICATION_INSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATION_KEY"
         }
       ]
     }
   }        
   

6. Deploy your application.

The following PowerShell commands are an approach for existing VMs that touch only the Azure Diagnostics extension.

Install Application Insights using the Azure Diagnostics configuration

1. Export the currently deployed Azure Diagnostics configuration to a file:

   $ConfigFilePath = [IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()
   

2. Add the Application Insights Profiler sink to the configuration returned by the following command:

   (Get-AzVMDiagnosticsExtension -ResourceGroupName "YOUR_RESOURCE_GROUP" -VMName "YOUR_VM").PublicSettings | Out-File -Verbose $ConfigFilePath
   

   Application Insights Profiler WadCfg:

   "WadCfg": {
     "SinksConfig": {
       "Sink": [
         {
           "name": "MyApplicationInsightsProfilerSink",
           "ApplicationInsightsProfiler": "YOUR_APPLICATION_INSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATION_KEY"
         }
       ]
     }
   }        
   

3. Run the following command to pass the updated configuration to the Set-AzVMDiagnosticsExtension command.

   Set-AzVMDiagnosticsExtension -ResourceGroupName "YOUR_RESOURCE_GROUP" -VMName "YOUR_VM" -DiagnosticsConfigurationPath $ConfigFilePath
   

   Note

   Set-AzVMDiagnosticsExtension might require the -StorageAccountName argument. If your original diagnostics configuration had the storageAccountName property in the protectedSettings section, which isn't downloadable, be sure to pass the same original value you had in this cmdlet call.

IIS Http Tracing feature

If the intended application is running through IIS, enable the IIS Http Tracing Windows feature:

1. Establish remote access to the environment.

2. Use the Add Windows features window, or run the following command in PowerShell, as administrator:

   Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName IIS-HttpTracing -Online -All
   

   If establishing remote access is a problem, you can use the Azure CLI to run the following command:

   az vm run-command invoke -g MyResourceGroupName -n MyVirtualMachineName --command-id RunPowerShellScript --scripts "Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -FeatureName IIS-HttpTracing -Online -All"
   

3. Deploy your application.