CiviCRM

Prerequisites

• An active Azure subscription, an SSH key pair, and a VNet plus subnet in the target region
• Standard_B2s (2 vCPU / 4 GiB RAM) is a sensible starting point. Size up for larger or busier organisations.
• NSG inbound: allow 22/tcp from your management network, and 80/tcp (plus 443/tcp once you add TLS) for the console.
• CiviCRM serves plain HTTP on port 80 out of the box. For production, terminate TLS in front of it with your own domain.
• The bundled MariaDB is never exposed. It listens on 127.0.0.1 only, so port 3306 stays off the network.

Step 1 - Deploy from the Azure Marketplace

Sign in to the Azure Portal and choose Create a resource. Search the Marketplace for CiviCRM by SecureAnyCloud and select Create.

On the Basics tab, pick your subscription, resource group, region and size. Under Administrator account, choose SSH public key and paste your key. Under Inbound port rules, allow SSH (22) and HTTP (80). Review the dedicated data disk on the Disks tab, then select Review + create and Create.

Step 2 - Deploy with the Azure CLI (alternative)

If you prefer the command line, create the VM from the SecureAnyCloud CiviCRM image with your resource group, image URN, size and SSH key. Open ports 22 and 80 on the network security group, then browse to the public IP.

# Accept the Marketplace terms once per subscription (required before the first CLI deploy)
az vm image terms accept --urn sac1647283583153:civicrm-ubuntu-24-04:default:latest
az vm create \
  --resource-group my-rg \
  --name civicrm \
  --image sac1647283583153:civicrm-ubuntu-24-04:default:latest \
  --size Standard_B2s \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --public-ip-sku Standard
az vm open-port --resource-group my-rg --name civicrm --port 80 --priority 900

Step 3 - Confirm the services and retrieve the admin password

SSH in as azureuser. All three services and the first-boot unit are active. nginx listens on port 80, MariaDB is bound to the loopback interface only, and the health endpoint returns 200.

systemctl is-active nginx php8.3-fpm mariadb civicrm-firstboot ss -tlnp | grep -E ':80 |:3306 ' curl -s -o /dev/null -w '/healthz -> HTTP %{http_code}\n' http://127.0.0.1/healthz

On the first boot of every VM, CiviCRM generates a unique administrator password and records it, together with the sign-in URL, in a root-only file. Read it with sudo.

sudo cat /root/civicrm-credentials.txt

Step 4 - Understand the no-default-credential security model

CiviCRM is installed with a build-time password that is immediately discarded, and the shipped image carries no known credential. On first boot the admin is set to a unique per-VM secret, stored as a salted Drupal 7-style hash, and the site key and cryptographic signing keys are regenerated.

You can confirm the model at any time. The per-VM admin password authenticates, while common guesses such as admin, password, civicrm and a blank password are all rejected.

sudo bash /usr/local/sbin/civicrm-cred-roundtrip.sh

Step 5 - Sign in to CiviCRM

Browse to http://<your-vm-ip>/civicrm/login and sign in with the user admin and the password from the credentials file. CiviCRM presents its own sign-in page. The base URL and all asset URLs follow the request host, so the console is reachable by the VM public IP or your own domain with no extra configuration.

After you sign in, you land on the CiviCRM home dashboard. The main navigation for Search, Contacts, Contributions, Events, Mailings, Memberships, Reports and Administer runs across the top, with configurable dashlets below.

Step 6 - Manage contacts

Open Contacts, then Find Contacts, to search and list the people and organisations in your database. Each contact has its own record with communication preferences, groups, tags, relationships, activities and contribution history.

Use New Individual or New Organization to add contacts. When you migrate, import contacts in bulk from CSV.

Step 7 - Record contributions and run events

CiviCRM's fundraising tools live under Contributions. Record donations and payments against contacts, define financial types, and report on totals over time.

Under Events, the Manage Events page lists your events with their type, dates and public status. From there you configure registration, fees and participant tracking.

Step 8 - Where your data lives

The bundled MariaDB stores its database on a dedicated Azure data disk. CiviCRM's settings, uploaded files and template cache are relocated onto the same disk. All of this is captured into the image and re-provisioned on every VM, so your CRM data is kept off the operating system disk.

df -h /data mount | grep -E ' /data | /var/lib/mysql | /var/www/civicrm/(private|public) '

Step 9 - Prepare for production

The appliance is ready to explore out of the box. Complete these tasks to prepare it for your organisation's live use.

• Add your own domain and TLS. Put CiviCRM behind HTTPS with your own certificate, and pin CIVICRM_UF_BASEURL in /var/www/civicrm/private/civicrm.settings.php to that domain.
• Configure outbound email (SMTP). Set an SMTP relay under Administer, System Settings, Outbound Email so CiviMail and receipts can be delivered.
• Add a payment processor. To accept online donations, connect your payment provider under Administer, CiviContribute, Payment Processors.
• Review the System Status page under Administer, Administration Console, System Status, and work through any remaining recommendations.
• Restrict access. Keep SSH limited to your management network, and place the console behind TLS and, ideally, a web application firewall.

Support

This image is maintained by SecureAnyCloud and backed by 24/7 support. CiviCRM is free and open-source software licensed under the GNU AGPL v3. SecureAnyCloud is not affiliated with or endorsed by CiviCRM LLC or the CiviCRM project. For help deploying or operating the image, contact SecureAnyCloud support.

Deploy on Azure

Launch CiviCRM on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS on Azure with 24/7 support from SecureAnyCloud.

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Need Help?

Our support team is available 24/7.

sales@secureanycloud.com