Merge pull request #2030 from JoeStech/dotnet_migration

Two LPs: .NET for Cobalt and creating a Cobalt VM

Author: pareenaverma

content/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/cobalt/1-create-cobalt-vm.md

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+---
+title: Create the Cobalt 100 virtual machine
+weight: 2
+
+### FIXED, DO NOT MODIFY
+layout: learningpathall
+---
+
+## Use the Azure Portal to deploy a Cobalt 100 VM
+
+Azure Cobalt 100 VMs are a part of the ['D' family of Azure VMs](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/sizes/general-purpose/d-family). To deploy one, follow these steps:
+
+1. Sign in to the [Azure Portal](https://portal.azure.com/).
+2. Select **Create a resource → Compute → Virtual machine**.
+3. Complete the *Basics* tab:
+   ![Azure Portal – Basics tab for the VM wizard#center](images/create-cobalt-vm.png)
+   The Dpsv6-series are powered by Cobalt 100. Selecting Standard_D4ps_v6 will give you a Cobalt VM with 4 physical cores. you can change the 4 to another value if you want a different number of cores.
+4. Upload your public SSH key or generate a new one in the wizard.
+5. Disallow public inbound ports for now.
+5. Accept the defaults on the *Disks* tab.
+6. On the *Networking* tab ensure that a **Public IP** is selected. You will need it to connect later. Leave the NSG settings as *Basic* for now. 
+
+Click **Review + create** followed by **Create**. Azure now deploys the VM and the automatically-generated Network Security Group (NSG). Provisioning takes ~2 minutes.
+
+Navigate to the **Deployment in progress** pane or open the **Notifications** panel to track progress. When the deployment succeeds proceed to the next step to expose an inbound port.

content/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/cobalt/2-open-port.md

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+---
+title: Open an inbound port in the Network Security Group
+weight: 3
+
+### FIXED, DO NOT MODIFY
+layout: learningpathall
+---
+
+## Allow external traffic to TCP ports 22 (SSH) and 8080
+
+Every new virtual machine created through the Azure wizard is associated with a **Network Security Group (NSG)**. An NSG acts like a stateful firewall – if no rule explicitly allows traffic, Azure blocks it.
+
+In this step you will open port 22 for SSH, as well as port 8080 so that a web application running on the VM is reachable from your IP for testing. Substitute a different port if required by your workload, or a different IP range if you'd like broader accessibility.
+
+1. In the Azure Portal open the newly created VM resource and click **Networking → Network settings** in the left nav.
+2. Select the **Network security group**.
+3. In the left nav click **Settings → Inbound security rules**
+4. Click **Add** at the top of the screen.
+5. Fill in the form, specifying **My IP address** as the source and 22 as the destination port:
+   ![Add inbound security rule with source of my IP and destination port 22#center](images/create-nsg-rule.png)
+
+To open port 8080, follow steps 4 and 5 again, but instead choose port 8080 for the destination port.
+
+You have now opened ports 22 and 8080 to your IP. In the next step you will verify connectivity.

content/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/cobalt/3-verify-connectivity.md

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+---
+title: Verify connectivity to the Cobalt 100 VM
+weight: 4
+
+### FIXED, DO NOT MODIFY
+layout: learningpathall
+---
+
+## Connect over SSH and test the open port
+
+1. On the **Overview** page for the VM copy the **Public IP address**.
+2. Open a terminal on your local machine and SSH to the VM (replace *azureuser* if you chose a different admin username):
+
+```bash
+ssh -i [path to your pem file] azureuser@[public IP]
+```
+
+Where `[public IP]` is your public IP and `[path to your pem file]` is the path to your SSH key file.
+
+Accept the prompt to add the host to *known_hosts* the first time you connect.
+
+### Start a simple HTTP server
+
+If you do not already have an application listening on TCP 8080 you can start one temporarily:
+
+```bash
+sudo apt update -y && sudo apt install -y python3
+python3 -m http.server 8080
+```
+
+Leave this terminal open – the server runs in the foreground.
+
+### Test from your local machine
+
+In a second local terminal run `curl` to confirm you can reach the server through the NSG rule you created:
+
+```bash
+curl http://[public IP]:8080
+```
+
+Where `[public IP]` is your public IP.
+
+You should see an HTML directory listing (or your application response). Receiving a response verifies that TCP 8080 is open and the VM is reachable from the public internet.
+
+Terminate the Python server when you are finished testing (press `Ctrl + C`).
+
+You now have an Arm-based Cobalt 100 VM with an exposed port 8080 that you can use to run any test server. To learn about optimizing .NET workloads on Cobalt, check out [Migrating a .NET application to Azure Cobalt](../../dotnet-migration/).

content/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/cobalt/_index.md

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+---
+title: Create an Azure Cobalt 100 VM
+
+minutes_to_complete: 10
+
+who_is_this_for: Developers and DevOps engineers who need an Arm-based virtual machine on Azure and want to expose an application port to the internet.
+
+learning_objectives:
+    - Deploy an Arm-based Cobalt 100 virtual machine (VM) on Microsoft Azure.
+    - Connect to the Cobalt 100 VM using SSH.
+    - Open an inbound TCP port in the associated Network Security Group (NSG).
+    - Verify external connectivity to the newly opened port.
+
+prerequisites:
+    - A Microsoft Azure subscription with permission to create resources
+    - Basic familiarity with SSH
+
+author: Joe Stech
+
+### Tags
+# Tagging metadata, see the Learning Path guide for the allowed values
+skilllevels: Introductory
+subjects: Containers and Virtualization
+arm_ips:
+    - Neoverse
+tools_software_languages:
+    - Azure Portal
+    - Azure CLI
+operatingsystems:
+    - Linux
+
+
+further_reading:
+    - resource:
+        title: Azure Cobalt 100 VM documentation
+        link: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/virtual-machines/cobalt-100
+        type: Documentation
+    - resource:
+        title: Azure Virtual Machines overview
+        link: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/virtual-machines/
+        type: Documentation
+    - resource:
+        title: Configure Azure network security group rules
+        link: https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/virtual-network/security-overview
+        type: Documentation
+
+
+
+### FIXED, DO NOT MODIFY
+# ================================================================================
+weight: 1                       # _index.md always has weight of 1 to order correctly
+layout: "learningpathall"       # All files under learning paths have this same wrapper
+learning_path_main_page: "yes"  # This should be surfaced when looking for related content. Only set for _index.md of learning path content.
+---

content/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/cobalt/_next-steps.md

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+---
+# ================================================================================
+#       FIXED, DO NOT MODIFY THIS FILE
+# ================================================================================
+weight: 21                  # Set to always be larger than the content in this path to be at the end of the navigation.
+title: "Next Steps"         # Always the same, html page title.
+layout: "learningpathall"   # All files under learning paths have this same wrapper for Hugo processing.
+---

content/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/cobalt/images/create-cobalt-vm.png

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+---
+title: Create a basic OrchardCore application
+weight: 2
+
+### FIXED, DO NOT MODIFY
+layout: learningpathall
+---
+
+# Create a basic OrchardCore application
+
+In this section, you will learn how to create and compile a basic [OrchardCore](https://github.com/OrchardCMS/OrchardCore) CMS application, as an example of a popular Linux-based .NET workload. OrchardCore is a modular and multi-tenant application framework built with ASP.NET Core, which can be used to create content-driven websites.
+
+## Step 1: Set up your development environment
+
+1. Launch an Azure Cobalt instance running Ubuntu 24.04, and open port 8080 to the internet. For instructions on how to do this, see the [Create an Azure Cobalt 100 VM](../../cobalt) Learning Path.
+
+2. **Install .NET SDK**:
+
+```bash
+wget https://packages.microsoft.com/config/ubuntu/24.04/packages-microsoft-prod.deb
+sudo dpkg -i packages-microsoft-prod.deb
+sudo apt-get update
+sudo apt-get install -y dotnet-sdk-8.0
+```
+
+3. **Verify installations**:
+
+```bash
+dotnet --version
+```
+
+## Step 2: Install the OrchardCore Templates
+
+To start building an OrchardCore application, you need to install the OrchardCore templates. Open your terminal and run the following command:
+
+```bash
+dotnet new -i OrchardCore.ProjectTemplates::1.0.0-rc2-13450
+```
+
+This command installs the OrchardCore project templates, which you will use to create a new application.
+
+## Step 3: Create a new OrchardCore application
+
+1. **Create a new project**: Use the `dotnet` CLI to create a new OrchardCore application.
+
+```bash
+dotnet new occms -n MyOrchardCoreApp
+```
+
+   This command creates a new OrchardCore CMS application in a directory named `MyOrchardCoreApp`.
+
+2. **Navigate to the project directory**:
+
+```bash
+cd MyOrchardCoreApp
+```
+
+## Step 4: Run the OrchardCore application
+
+1. **Build the application**: Compile the application using the following command:
+
+```bash
+dotnet build
+```
+
+2. **Run the application**: Start the application with:
+
+```bash
+dotnet run --urls http://0.0.0.0:8080
+```
+
+3. **Access the application**: Open a web browser and navigate to `http://[instance IP]:8080` to see your OrchardCore application in action, where `[instance IP]` is the public IP of your Azure Cobalt instance.
+
+4. **Configure the application as a blog** In the resulting configuration page, 
+
+You have successfully created and run a basic OrchardCore CMS application. In the next sections, you will learn how to integrate a C shared library into your .NET application and explore performance optimizations for Arm architecture.

content/learning-paths/servers-and-cloud-computing/cobalt/images/create-nsg-rule.png

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+---
+title: Add a simple C shared library to your .NET OrchardCore application
+weight: 3
+
+### FIXED, DO NOT MODIFY
+layout: learningpathall
+---
+
+## Introduction
+
+In this section, you will learn how to integrate a simple C shared library into your .NET OrchardCore application. This process involves creating a C library, compiling it, and then using it within your .NET application. This integration can help you leverage existing C code and libraries, enhancing the functionality and performance of your application.
+
+
+## Step 1: Create a C shared library
+
+First, you need to create a simple C shared library. This library will contain a function that you will call from your .NET application.
+
+1. Create a new file named `mylib.c` with the following content:
+
+```c
+#include <stdio.h>
+
+void greet() {
+    printf("Hello from the C library!\n");
+}
+```
+
+2. Compile the C file into a shared library:
+
+```bash
+gcc -shared -o libmylib.so -fPIC mylib.c
+```
+
+   This will generate a shared library file (`libmylib.so`).
+
+## Step 2: Use the C library in your .NET application
+
+Now that you have a shared library, you can use it in your .NET application.
+
+1. In your OrchardCore application, create a new class file named `NativeMethods.cs`:
+
+```csharp
+using System;
+using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
+
+public static class NativeMethods
+{
+    [DllImport("mylib", EntryPoint = "greet")]
+    public static extern void Greet();
+}
+```
+
+2. Call the `Greet` method from your application. For example, you can add the following code to your main program or a controller:
+
+```csharp
+using OrchardCore.Logging;
+
+var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
+
+builder.Host.UseNLogHost();
+
+builder.Services
+    .AddOrchardCms()
+    // // Orchard Specific Pipeline
+    // .ConfigureServices( services => {
+    // })
+    // .Configure( (app, routes, services) => {
+    // })
+;
+
+var app = builder.Build();
+
+Console.WriteLine("Calling native greet..."); // NEW INTEROP LINE
+NativeMethods.Greet();                        // NEW INTEROP LINE
+
+if (!app.Environment.IsDevelopment())
+{
+    app.UseExceptionHandler("/Error");
+    // The default HSTS value is 30 days. You may want to change this for production scenarios, see https://aka.ms/aspnetcore-hsts.
+    app.UseHsts();
+}
+
+app.UseHttpsRedirection();
+app.UseStaticFiles();
+
+app.UseOrchardCore();
+
+app.Run();
+```
+
+3. Ensure that dotnet can find your shared library:
+
+```bash
+export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$(pwd):$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
+```
+
+## Step 3: Run your application
+
+Now when you run `dotnet run`, you will see
+
+```bash
+Calling native greet...
+Hello from the C library!
+```
+
+in the logging output.
+
+## Compiling for Arm
+
+If you are compiling for Arm directly on Azure Cobalt, the compiler understands what default processor optimizations it should use, and you can compile as done in Step 1 above. However, if you are cross-compiling in your build pipeline, you should specify `-mcpu=neoverse-n2 -O3` when running the cross-compiler:
+
+```bash
+aarch64-linux-gnu-gcc -mcpu=neoverse-n2 -O3 -shared -o libmylib.so -fPIC mylib.c
+```
+
+The `-mcpu=neoverse-n2` flag specifies the Cobalt architecture, and `-O3` ensures that maximum optimizations are completed (including SIMD opimizations).
+
+In the next section, you will explore how to make your build architecture agnostic with the anyCPU feature.