Building VM Template or Golden Image with Azure ARC agent preinstalled?

Question

Hello,

I've been working recently on adding our on-prem VMs to Azure via Azure ARC to utilize update management automation. So far everything has worked splendidly (aside from not being able to use VM tags for targeting groups of VMs but we were able to work around that). Now, since we are going to continue using on-prem VMs for the foreseeable future, I'd like to create a VM template that already has the agent installed. Is this possible? If so, what would be the recommended processes? I've read through all the deployment guides and I can't find any specific references to what I'd like to accomplish. I understand the service principle may be a bit of a challenge, but I'm willing to explore some creative options. Thanks!

Jeff

Answer 1

Hi,
I believe this is not possible or at least not fully. You could probably install the actual agent but installing the agent is only one part. After installation you need to register the machine to Azure by using service principal credentials. This second part will have to be ran every time you spin up a new server from that image. You will need to install the agent every time. When you try to add ARC server you can choose bulk mode. This will give you a script to do that. From that script this is the part where the agent (windows) is installed and you can put into your image

[System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12  
  
# Download the installation package  
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://aka.ms/azcmagent-windows" -TimeoutSec 30 -OutFile "$env:TEMP\install_windows_azcmagent.ps1"  
  
# Install the hybrid agent  
& "$env:TEMP\install_windows_azcmagent.ps1"  
if($LASTEXITCODE -ne 0) {  
    throw "Failed to install the hybrid agent"  
}  
  

The part after:

# Run connect command  

you will need to run every time a new machine is created from the image. That part registers the machine to Azure ARC by using that agent.

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