Support matrix for physical server discovery and assessment

Article
12/09/2024

This article summarizes prerequisites and support requirements when you assess physical servers for migration to Azure by using the Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment tool. If you want to migrate physical servers to Azure, see the migration support matrix.

To assess physical servers, you create a project and add the Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment tool to the project. After you add the tool, you deploy the Azure Migrate appliance. The appliance continuously discovers on-premises servers and sends servers metadata and performance data to Azure. After discovery is finished, you gather discovered servers into groups and run an assessment for a group.

Limitations

Support	Details
Assessment limits	You can discover and assess up to 35,000 physical servers in a single project.
Project limits	You can create multiple projects in an Azure subscription. In addition to physical servers, a project can include servers on VMware and on Hyper-V, up to the assessment limits for each.
Discovery	The Azure Migrate appliance can discover up to 1,000 physical servers.
Assessment	You can add up to 35,000 servers in a single group. You can assess up to 35,000 servers in a single assessment.

Learn more about assessments.

Physical server requirements

Physical server deployment: The physical server can be standalone or deployed in a cluster.
Type of servers: Bare-metal servers, virtualized servers running on-premises, or other clouds like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Xen.

Note

Currently, Azure Migrate doesn't support the discovery of paravirtualized servers.
Operating system: All Windows and Linux operating systems can be assessed for migration.

Permissions for Windows servers

For Windows servers, use a domain account for domain-joined servers and a local account for servers that aren't domain joined.
For physical discovery, specify the username in Down level format (domain\username) and UPN format (username@domain.com) is not supported.

You can create the user account in one of the following two ways.

Option 1

Create an account that has administrator privileges on the servers. Use this account to:

Pull configuration and performance data through a Common Information Model (CIM) connection.
Perform software inventory (discovery of installed applications).
Enable agentless dependency analysis by using PowerShell remoting.

Note

If you want to perform software inventory (discovery of installed applications) and enable agentless dependency analysis on Windows servers, we recommend that you use Option 1.

Option 2

Add the user account to these groups: Remote Management Users, Performance Monitor Users, and Performance Log Users.
If the Remote Management Users group isn't present, add the following user account to the group WinRMRemoteWMIUsers_.
The account needs these permissions for the appliance to create a CIM connection with the server and pull the required configuration and performance metadata from the Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) classes listed here.
In some cases, adding the account to these groups might not return the required data from WMI classes. The account might be filtered by User Account Control (UAC). To overcome the UAC filtering, the user account needs to have the necessary permissions on CIMV2 Namespace and subnamespaces on the target server. To enable the required permissions, see Troubleshoot the Azure Migrate appliance.

Note

For Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2, ensure that Windows Management Framework 3.0 is installed on the servers.

To discover SQL Server databases on Windows servers, both Windows and SQL Server authentication are supported. You can provide credentials of both authentication types in the appliance configuration manager. Azure Migrate requires a Windows user account that's a member of the sysadmin server role.

Permissions for Linux server

For Linux servers, based on the features you want to perform, you can create a user account in one of the following two ways.

Option 1

You need a sudo user account on the servers that you want to discover. Use this account to:
- Pull configuration and performance metadata.
- Perform software inventory (discovery of installed applications).
- Enable agentless dependency analysis by using Secure Shell (SSH) connectivity.
You need to enable sudo access on /usr/bin/bash to execute the commands listed in Linux server metadata. In addition to these commands, the user account also needs to have permissions to execute ls and netstat commands to perform agentless dependency analysis.
Make sure that you enable NOPASSWD for the account to run the required commands without prompting for a password every time the sudo command is invoked.

Azure Migrate and Modernize supports the following Linux OS distributions for discovery by using an account with sudo access:

Operating system	Versions
Red Hat Enterprise Linux	5.1, 5.3, 5.11, 6.x, 7.x, 8.x, 9.x
Ubuntu	12.04, 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04
Oracle Linux	6.1, 6.7, 6.8, 6.9, 7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6, 7.7, 7.8, 7.9, 8, 8.1, 8.3, 8.5
SUSE Linux	10, 11 SP4, 12 SP1, 12 SP2, 12 SP3, 12 SP4, 15 SP2, 15 SP3
Debian	7, 8, 9, 10, 11
Amazon Linux	2.0.2021
CoreOS Container	2345.3.0

Note

If you want to perform software inventory (discovery of installed applications) and enable agentless dependency analysis on Linux servers, we recommend that you use Option 1.

Option 2

If you can't provide the root account or user account with sudo access, you can set the isSudo registry key to the value 0 in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AzureAppliance registry on the appliance server. Provide a nonroot account with the required capabilities by using the following commands:

Command	Purpose
setcap CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH+eip /usr/sbin/fdisk setcap CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH+eip /sbin/fdisk (if /usr/sbin/fdisk is not present)	Collects disk configuration data.
setcap "cap_dac_override,cap_dac_read_search,cap_fowner,cap_fsetid,cap_setuid, cap_setpcap,cap_net_bind_service,cap_net_admin,cap_sys_chroot,cap_sys_admin, cap_sys_resource,cap_audit_control,cap_setfcap=+eip" /sbin/lvm	Collects disk performance data.
setcap CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH+eip /usr/sbin/dmidecode	Collects BIOS serial number.
chmod a+r /sys/class/dmi/id/product_uuid	Collects BIOS GUID.

To perform agentless dependency analysis on the server, ensure that you also set the required permissions on /bin/netstat and /bin/ls files by using the following commands:
sudo setcap CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH,CAP_SYS_PTRACE=ep /bin/ls sudo setcap CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH,CAP_SYS_PTRACE=ep /bin/netstat

Azure Migrate appliance requirements

Azure Migrate uses the Azure Migrate appliance for discovery and assessment. The appliance for physical servers can run on a virtual machine (VM) or a physical server.

Learn about appliance requirements for physical servers.
Learn about URLs that the appliance needs to access in Azure operated by 21Vianet.
Use a PowerShell script that you download from the Azure portal to set up the appliance.
In Azure operated by 21Vianet, you must deploy the appliance using the script.

Port access

The following table summarizes port requirements for assessment.

Device	Connection
Appliance	Inbound connections on TCP port 3389 to allow remote desktop connections to the appliance. Inbound connections on port 44368 to remotely access the appliance management app by using the URL `https://<appliance-ip-or-name>:44368`. Outbound connections on ports 443 (HTTPS) to send discovery and performance metadata to Azure Migrate and Modernize.
Physical servers	Windows: Inbound connection on WinRM port 5985 (HTTP) to pull configuration and performance metadata from Windows servers. Linux: Inbound connections on port 22 (TCP) to pull configuration and performance metadata from Linux servers.

Software inventory requirements

In addition to discovering servers, Azure Migrate: Discovery and assessment can perform software inventory on servers. Software inventory provides the list of applications, roles, and features running on Windows and Linux servers that are discovered by using Azure Migrate and Modernize. It helps you to identify and plan a migration path tailored for your on-premises workloads.

Support	Details
Supported servers	You can perform software inventory on up to 1,000 servers discovered from each Azure Migrate appliance.
Operating systems	Servers running all Windows and Linux versions that meet the server requirements and have the required access permissions are supported.
Server requirements	Windows servers must have PowerShell remoting enabled and PowerShell version 2.0 or later installed. WMI must be enabled and available on Windows servers to gather the details of the roles and features installed on the servers. Linux servers must have SSH connectivity enabled and ensure that the following commands can be executed on the Linux servers to pull the application data: list, tail, awk, grep, locate, head, sed, ps, print, sort, uniq. Based on the OS type and the type of package manager used, here are some more commands: rpm/snap/dpkg, yum/apt-cache, mssql-server.
Windows server access	A guest user account for Windows servers.
Linux server access	A standard user account (non-sudo access) for all Linux servers.
Port access	Windows servers need access on port 5985 (HTTP). Linux servers need access on port 22 (TCP).
Discovery	Software inventory is performed by directly connecting to the servers by using the server credentials added on the appliance. The appliance gathers the information about the software inventory from Windows servers by using PowerShell remoting and from Linux servers by using the SSH connection. Software inventory is agentless. No agent is installed on the servers.

SQL Server instance and database discovery requirements

Software inventory identifies SQL Server instances. The appliance attempts to connect to respective SQL Server instances through the Windows authentication or SQL Server authentication credentials provided in the appliance configuration manager by using this information. The appliance can connect to only those SQL Server instances to which it has network line of sight. Software inventory by itself might not need network line of sight.

After the appliance is connected, it gathers configuration and performance data for SQL Server instances and databases. The appliance updates the SQL Server configuration data once every 24 hours and captures the performance data every 30 seconds.

Support	Details
Supported servers	Supported only for servers running SQL Server in your VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and physical/bare-metal environments and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) servers of other public clouds, such as AWS and GCP. You can discover up to 750 SQL Server instances or 15,000 SQL databases, whichever is less, from a single appliance. We recommend that you ensure that an appliance is scoped to discover less than 600 servers running SQL to avoid scaling issues.
Windows servers	Windows Server 2008 and later are supported.
Linux servers	Currently not supported.
Authentication mechanism	Both Windows and SQL Server authentication are supported. You can provide credentials of both authentication types in the appliance configuration manager.
SQL Server access	To discover SQL Server instances and databases, the Windows or SQL Server account must be a member of the sysadmin server role or have these permissions for each SQL Server instance.
SQL Server versions	SQL Server 2008 and later are supported.
SQL Server editions	Enterprise, Standard, Developer, and Express editions are supported.
Supported SQL configuration	Discovery of standalone, highly available, and disaster-protected SQL deployments is supported. Discovery of high-availability and disaster recovery SQL deployments powered by Always On failover cluster instances and Always On availability groups is also supported.
Supported SQL services	Only SQL Server Database Engine is supported. Discovery of SQL Server Reporting Services, SQL Server Integration Services, and SQL Server Analysis Services isn't supported.

Note

By default, Azure Migrate uses the most secure way of connecting to SQL instances. That is, Azure Migrate and Modernize encrypts communication between the Azure Migrate appliance and the source SQL Server instances by setting the TrustServerCertificate property to true. Also, the transport layer uses Secure Socket Layer to encrypt the channel and bypass the certificate chain to validate trust. For this reason, the appliance server must be set up to trust the certificate's root authority.

However, you can modify the connection settings by selecting Edit SQL Server connection properties on the appliance. Learn more to understand what to choose.

Use the following sample scripts to create a login and provision it with the necessary permissions.

Windows authentication

-- Create a login to run the assessment
use master;
DECLARE @SID NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'';
CREATE LOGIN [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT] FROM WINDOWS;
SELECT @SID = N'0x'+CONVERT(NVARCHAR, sid, 2) FROM sys.syslogins where name = 'MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT'
IF (ISNULL(@SID,'') != '')
  PRINT N'Created login [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT] with SID = ' + @SID
ELSE
  PRINT N'Login creation failed'
GO    

-- Create user in every database other than tempdb, model, and secondary AG databases (with connection_type = ALL) and provide minimal read-only permissions.
USE master;
EXECUTE sp_MSforeachdb '
  USE [?];
  IF (''?'' NOT IN (''tempdb'',''model''))
  BEGIN
    DECLARE @is_secondary_replica BIT = 0;
    IF CAST(PARSENAME(CAST(SERVERPROPERTY(''ProductVersion'') AS VARCHAR), 4) AS INT) >= 11
    BEGIN
      DECLARE @innersql NVARCHAR(MAX);
      SET @innersql = N''
        SELECT @is_secondary_replica = IIF(
          EXISTS (
              SELECT 1
              FROM sys.availability_replicas a
              INNER JOIN sys.dm_hadr_database_replica_states b
              ON a.replica_id = b.replica_id
              WHERE b.is_local = 1
              AND b.is_primary_replica = 0
              AND a.secondary_role_allow_connections = 2
              AND b.database_id = DB_ID()
          ), 1, 0
        );
      '';
      EXEC sp_executesql @innersql, N''@is_secondary_replica BIT OUTPUT'', @is_secondary_replica OUTPUT;
    END
    IF (@is_secondary_replica = 0)
    BEGIN
      CREATE USER [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT] FOR LOGIN [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
      GRANT SELECT ON sys.sql_expression_dependencies TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
      GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
    END
  END'
GO

-- Provide server level read-only permissions
use master;
GRANT SELECT ON sys.sql_expression_dependencies TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT EXECUTE ON OBJECT::sys.xp_regenumkeys TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT EXECUTE ON OBJECT::sys.xp_instance_regread TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT VIEW ANY DEFINITION TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GO

-- Provide msdb specific permissions
use msdb;
GRANT EXECUTE ON [msdb].[dbo].[agent_datetime] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysjobsteps] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[syssubsystems] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysjobhistory] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[syscategories] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysjobs] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmaintplan_plans] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[syscollector_collection_sets] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmail_profile] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmail_profileaccount] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmail_account] TO [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
GO

-- Clean up
--use master;
-- EXECUTE sp_MSforeachdb 'USE [?]; DROP USER [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT]'
-- DROP LOGIN [MYDOMAIN\MYACCOUNT];
--GO

SQL Server authentication

--- Create a login to run the assessment
use master;
-- NOTE: SQL instances that host replicas of Always On availability groups must use the same SID for the SQL login.
 -- After the account is created in one of the members, copy the SID output from the script and include this value
 -- when executing against the remaining replicas.
 -- When the SID needs to be specified, add the value to the @SID variable definition below.
DECLARE @SID NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'';
IF (@SID = N'')
BEGIN
 CREATE LOGIN [evaluator]
     WITH PASSWORD = '<provide a strong password>'
END
ELSE
BEGIN
 DECLARE @SQLString NVARCHAR(500) = 'CREATE LOGIN [evaluator]
   WITH PASSWORD = ''<provide a strong password>''
   , SID = ' + @SID
 EXEC SP_EXECUTESQL @SQLString
END
SELECT @SID = N'0x'+CONVERT(NVARCHAR(100), sid, 2) FROM sys.syslogins where name = 'evaluator'
IF (ISNULL(@SID,'') != '')
 PRINT N'Created login [evaluator] with SID = '''+ @SID +'''. If this instance hosts any Always On Availability Group replica, use this SID value when executing the script against the instances hosting the other replicas'
ELSE
 PRINT N'Login creation failed'
GO

-- Create user in every database other than tempdb, model, and secondary AG databases (with connection_type = ALL) and provide minimal read-only permissions.
USE master;
EXECUTE sp_MSforeachdb '
 USE [?];
 IF (''?'' NOT IN (''tempdb'',''model''))
 BEGIN
   DECLARE @is_secondary_replica BIT = 0;
   IF CAST(PARSENAME(CAST(SERVERPROPERTY(''ProductVersion'') AS VARCHAR), 4) AS INT) >= 11
   BEGIN
     DECLARE @innersql NVARCHAR(MAX);
     SET @innersql = N''
       SELECT @is_secondary_replica = IIF(
         EXISTS (
           SELECT 1
           FROM sys.availability_replicas a
           INNER JOIN sys.dm_hadr_database_replica_states b
             ON a.replica_id = b.replica_id
           WHERE b.is_local = 1
             AND b.is_primary_replica = 0
             AND a.secondary_role_allow_connections = 2
             AND b.database_id = DB_ID()
         ), 1, 0
       );
     '';
     EXEC sp_executesql @innersql, N''@is_secondary_replica BIT OUTPUT'', @is_secondary_replica OUTPUT;
   END

   IF (@is_secondary_replica = 0)
   BEGIN
       CREATE USER [evaluator] FOR LOGIN [evaluator];
       GRANT SELECT ON sys.sql_expression_dependencies TO [evaluator];
       GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE TO [evaluator];
   END
 END'
GO

-- Provide server level read-only permissions
USE master;
GRANT SELECT ON sys.sql_expression_dependencies TO [evaluator];
GRANT EXECUTE ON OBJECT::sys.xp_regenumkeys TO [evaluator];
GRANT EXECUTE ON OBJECT::sys.xp_instance_regread TO [evaluator];
GRANT VIEW DATABASE STATE TO [evaluator];
GRANT VIEW SERVER STATE TO [evaluator];
GRANT VIEW ANY DEFINITION TO [evaluator];
GO

-- Provide msdb specific permissions
USE msdb;
GRANT EXECUTE ON [msdb].[dbo].[agent_datetime] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysjobsteps] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[syssubsystems] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysjobhistory] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[syscategories] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysjobs] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmaintplan_plans] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[syscollector_collection_sets] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmail_profile] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmail_profileaccount] TO [evaluator];
GRANT SELECT ON [msdb].[dbo].[sysmail_account] TO [evaluator];
GO

-- Clean up
--use master;
-- EXECUTE sp_MSforeachdb 'USE [?]; BEGIN TRY DROP USER [evaluator] END TRY BEGIN CATCH PRINT ERROR_MESSAGE() END CATCH;'
-- BEGIN TRY DROP LOGIN [evaluator] END TRY BEGIN CATCH PRINT ERROR_MESSAGE() END CATCH;
--GO

Web apps discovery requirements

Software inventory identifies the web server role that exists on discovered servers. If a server is found to have a web server installed, Azure Migrate and Modernize discovers web apps on the server.

You can add both domain and nondomain credentials on the appliance. Ensure that the account used has local admin privileges on the source servers. Azure Migrate and Modernize automatically maps credentials to the respective servers, so you don't have to map them manually. Most importantly, these credentials are never sent to Azure and remain on the appliance running in the source environment.

After the appliance is connected, it gathers configuration data for ASP.NET web apps (IIS web server) and Java web apps (Tomcat servers). Web apps configuration data is updated once every 24 hours.

Support	ASP.NET web apps	Java web apps
Stack	VMware, Hyper-V, and physical servers.	VMware, Hyper-V, and physical servers.
Windows servers	Windows Server 2008 R2 and later are supported.	Not supported.
Linux servers	Not supported.	Ubuntu Linux 16.04/18.04/20.04, Debian 7/8, and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5/6/7.
Web server versions	IIS 7.5 and later.	Tomcat 8 or later.
Required privileges	Local admin.	Root or sudo user.

Note

Data is always encrypted at rest and during transit.

Dependency analysis requirements (agentless)

Dependency analysis helps you analyze the dependencies between the discovered servers. You can easily visualize dependencies with a map view in an Azure Migrate project. You can use dependencies to group related servers for migration to Azure. The following table summarizes the requirements for setting up agentless dependency analysis.

Support	Details
Supported servers	You can enable agentless dependency analysis on up to 1,000 servers discovered per appliance.
Operating systems	Servers running all Windows and Linux versions that meet the server requirements and have the required access permissions are supported.
Server requirements	Windows servers must have PowerShell remoting enabled and PowerShell version 2.0 or later installed. Linux servers must have SSH connectivity enabled and ensure that the following commands can be executed on the Linux servers: touch, chmod, cat, ps, grep, echo, sha256sum, awk, netstat, ls, sudo, dpkg, rpm, sed, getcap, which, date.
Windows server access	Guest user account
Linux server access	A sudo user account with permissions to execute ls and netstat commands. If you're providing a sudo user account, ensure that you enable NOPASSWD for the account to run the required commands without prompting for a password every time the sudo command is invoked. Alternatively, you can create a user account that has the CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH and CAP_SYS_PTRACE permissions on /bin/netstat and /bin/ls files set by using the following commands: `sudo setcap CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH,CAP_SYS_PTRACE=ep usr/bin/ls` `sudo setcap CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH,CAP_SYS_PTRACE=ep usr/bin/netstat`
Port access	Windows servers need access on port 5985 (HTTP). Linux servers need access on port 22 (TCP).
Discovery method	Agentless dependency analysis is performed by directly connecting to the servers by using the server credentials added on the appliance. The appliance gathers the dependency information from Windows servers by using PowerShell remoting and from Linux servers by using the SSH connection. No agent is installed on the servers to pull dependency data.

Next steps

Prepare for discovery of physical servers.

Support matrix for physical server discovery and assessment

Limitations

Physical server requirements

Permissions for Windows servers

Option 1

Option 2

Permissions for Linux server

Option 1

Option 2

Azure Migrate appliance requirements

Port access

Software inventory requirements

SQL Server instance and database discovery requirements

Configure the custom login for SQL Server discovery

Windows authentication

SQL Server authentication

Web apps discovery requirements

Dependency analysis requirements (agentless)

Next steps

Additional resources