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Azure Local Ranger

Azure Local Ranger — Know your ground truth.

Know your ground truth.

Azure Local Ranger is a discovery, documentation, audit, and reporting solution for Azure Local.

Its purpose is to document an Azure Local deployment as a complete system — the on-prem platform, the workloads running on it, and the Azure resources that represent, manage, monitor, or extend that deployment.

Ranger supports two primary modes of use:

  • Current-state documentation — run at any time to document what exists, how something is configured, and what its current health and risk posture looks like.
  • As-built handoff documentation — run after a deployment to produce a structured documentation package suitable for customer handoff, operations onboarding, or managed-service transition.

Both modes use the same discovery engine. The difference is a parameter, not a different product.

Ranger is designed with explicit support for the range of Azure Local operating models — hyperconverged, switchless, rack-aware, local identity with Azure Key Vault, disconnected operations, and future multi-rack scenarios. It does not silently assume one cluster shape.

If you are new to Ranger, the cleanest path through the docs is:

  1. product definition
  2. architecture and operator model
  3. discovery domains and outputs
  4. roadmap and repository structure
  5. contributor guidance

Current Project Phase

AzureLocalRanger is at v2.6.4 — First-Run UX Patch. Install from PSGallery:

Install-Module AzureLocalRanger -Scope CurrentUser -Force
Import-Module AzureLocalRanger
Connect-AzAccount                 # once per session

Three ways to run Ranger, ranked. Pick the one that matches how thorough you want to be.

Invoke-AzureLocalRanger -Wizard

Walks every question, validates GUIDs inline, shows a review screen before anything runs, and saves a reusable YAML config for next time. Supports all six Azure auth methods (existing-context, runtime prompt, service-principal, managed-identity, device-code, azure-cli), an optional BMC endpoints section, and per-run mode selection (current-state vs as-built). See the Wizard Guide.

Path 2 — Config file + run

New-AzureLocalRangerConfig -Path .\ranger.yml
# edit .\ranger.yml in your editor
Invoke-AzureLocalRanger -ConfigPath .\ranger.yml

Best for version-controlled configs, CI / scheduled runs, and team-standard deployments.

Path 3 — Parameters or zero-config

# Minimum: 2 fields — Ranger enumerates HCI clusters in the subscription and picks one
Invoke-AzureLocalRanger -TenantId <guid> -SubscriptionId <guid>

# Named cluster: skip the selection prompt
Invoke-AzureLocalRanger -TenantId <guid> -SubscriptionId <guid> -ClusterName <name>

# Bare: prompts interactively for whatever is missing
Invoke-AzureLocalRanger

Fastest for ad-hoc runs. Azure Arc auto-discovery fills in resource group, cluster FQDN, nodes, and AD domain from the selected cluster resource.

Where To Start

New here?

Start with the First Run guide — it takes you from install to finished output in six steps with no decisions to make.

Audience Start Here
New operators First Run
Returning operators Command Reference — common scenarios
Configuring a new environment Wizard Guide
Reading your results Understanding Output
Config file questions Configuration Reference
Everyone What Ranger Is
Everyone Scope Boundary
Architects and operators Architecture Overview
Architects and operators Discovery Domain Pages
Project and repo readers Roadmap
Contributors Getting Started