Patching Of azure VM's

Question

Hello Community,

I am trying to introduce patch management of Vms in our infra.

I am looking for Automatic VM guest patching for Azure VMs- certain things unclear for me are.

1. How to enable this for already running vms.
2. How to test the patch before being applied.
3. How is rollback.
4. Can you configure the reboot of instances, if so how ?

Next tool:

Update management center (preview)

1. How to enroll all vms in all RG in one go
2. Testing patch before applying ?
3. Will this be continuing as currently on preview

Thanks,

Emil

Answer 1

Hello @Em

Automatic VM guest patching can be enabled on any Windows or Linux VM that is created from a supported platform image. You can enable Automatic VM guest patching by using the Azure portal, Azure PowerShell, Azure CLI, or REST API.

Requirements for enabling automatic VM guest patching:

• The virtual machine must have the Azure VM Agent for Windows or Linux installed.
• For Linux VMs, the Azure Linux agent must be version 2.2.53.1 or higher. Update the Linux agent if the current version is lower than the required version.
• For Windows VMs, the Windows Update service must be running on the virtual machine.
• The virtual machine must be able to access the configured update endpoints. If your virtual machine is configured to use private repositories for Linux or Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) for Windows VMs, the relevant update endpoints must be accessible.
• Custom images aren't currently supported.

Reference links:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/update-management/enable-from-portal?source=recommendations

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/automatic-vm-guest-patching?source=recommendations

To test the patch before being applied, you can use the Azure Update Management solution. Azure Update Management provides a way to assess the status of available updates, schedule installation of required updates, and review deployment results to verify updates were applied successfully to managed VMs. You can use the Azure Update Management solution to test patches before applying them to your VMs.

You can configure the reboot of instances by using the Azure Update Management solution. Azure Update Management provides a way to assess the status of available updates, schedule installation of required updates, and review deployment results to verify updates were applied successfully to managed VMs. You can configure the reboot of instances by specifying the reboot options in the update deployment.

To enroll all VMs in all resource groups in one go, you can use the Azure Update Management solution. Azure Update Management provides a way to assess the status of available updates, schedule installation of required updates, and review deployment results to verify updates were applied successfully to managed VMs. You can use the Azure Update Management solution to enroll all VMs in all resource groups in one go.

You can use the Azure Update Management solution to test patches before applying them to your VMs. Azure Update Management provides a way to assess the status of available updates, schedule installation of required updates, and review deployment results to verify updates were applied successfully to managed VMs.

Update Management Center (preview) is a new experience for managing updates and maintenance for Azure VMs. It provides a centralized location to manage updates and maintenance for Azure VMs. The preview version of Update Management Center is currently available and will continue to be available until the general availability release.

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