Create and edit data collection rules (DCRs) in Azure Monitor

Article
03/28/2024

There are multiple methods for creating a data collection rule (DCR) in Azure Monitor. In some cases, Azure Monitor will create and manage the DCR according to settings that you configure in the Azure portal. In other cases, you might need to create your own DCRs to customize particular scenarios.

This article describes the different methods for creating and editing a DCR. For the contents of the DCR itself, see Structure of a data collection rule in Azure Monitor.

Permissions

You require the following permissions to create DCRs and associations:

Built-in role	Scopes	Reason
Monitoring Contributor	Subscription and/or Resource group and/or An existing DCR	Create or edit DCRs, assign rules to the machine, deploy associations.
Virtual Machine Contributor Azure Connected Machine Resource Administrator	Virtual machines, virtual machine scale sets Azure Arc-enabled servers	Deploy agent extensions on the VM.
Any role that includes the action Microsoft.Resources/deployments/*	Subscription and/or Resource group and/or An existing DCR	Deploy Azure Resource Manager templates.

Automated methods to create a DCR

The following table lists methods to create data collection scenarios using the Azure portal where the DCR is created for you. In these cases you don't need to interact directly with the DCR itself.

Scenario	Resources	Description
Azure Monitor Agent	Configure data collection for Azure Monitor Agent	Use the Azure portal to create a DCR that specifies events and performance counters to collect from a machine with Azure Monitor Agent. Then associate that rule with one or more virtual machines. Azure Monitor Agent will be installed on any machines that don't currently have it.
	Enable VM insights overview	When you enable VM insights on a VM, the Azure Monitor agent is installed, and a DCR is created that collects a predefined set of performance counters. You shouldn't modify this DCR.
Container insights	Enable Container insights	When you enable Container insights on a Kubernetes cluster, a containerized version of the Azure Monitor agent is installed, and a DCR is created that collects data according to the configuration you selected. You may need to modify this DCR to add a transformation.
Text or JSON logs	Collect logs from a text or JSON file with Azure Monitor Agent	Use the Azure portal to create a DCR to collect entries from a text log on a machine with Azure Monitor Agent.

Manually create a DCR

To manually create a DCR, create a JSON file using the appropriate configuration for the data collection that you're configuring. Start with one of the sample DCRs and use information in Structure of a data collection rule in Azure Monitor to modify the JSON file for your particular environment and requirements.

Once you have the JSON file created, you can use any of the following methods to create the DCR:

Use the az monitor data-collection rule create command to create a DCR from your JSON file using the Azure CLI as shown in the following example.

az monitor data-collection rule create --location 'eastus' --resource-group 'my-resource-group' --name 'myDCRName' --rule-file 'C:\MyNewDCR.json' --description 'This is my new DCR'

Use the New-AzDataCollectionRule cmdlet to create the DCR from your JSON file using PowerShell as shown in the following example.

New-AzDataCollectionRule -Location 'east-us' -ResourceGroupName 'my-resource-group' -RuleName 'myDCRName' -RuleFile 'C:\MyNewDCR.json' -Description 'This is my new DCR'

Use the DCR create API to create the DCR from your JSON file. You can use any method to call a REST API as shown in the following examples.

$ResourceId = "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/my-resource-group/providers/Microsoft.Insights/dataCollectionRules/my-dcr"
$FilePath = ".\my-dcr.json"
$DCRContent = Get-Content $FilePath -Raw 
Invoke-AzRestMethod -Path ("$ResourceId"+"?api-version=2022-06-01") -Method PUT -Payload $DCRContent

ResourceId="/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/my-resource-group/providers/Microsoft.Insights/dataCollectionRules/my-dcr"
FilePath="my-dcr.json"
az rest --method put --url $ResourceId"?api-version=2022-06-01" --body @$FilePath

See the following references for defining DCRs and associations in a template.

Use the following template to create a DCR using information from Structure of a data collection rule in Azure Monitor and Sample data collection rules (DCRs) in Azure Monitor to define the dcr-properties.

{
    "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "dataCollectionRuleName": {
            "type": "string",
            "metadata": {
                "description": "Specifies the name of the Data Collection Rule to create."
            }
        },
        "location": {
            "type": "string",
            "metadata": {
                "description": "Specifies the location in which to create the Data Collection Rule."
            }
        }
    },
    "resources": [
        {
            "type": "Microsoft.Insights/dataCollectionRules",
            "name": "[parameters('dataCollectionRuleName')]",
            "location": "[parameters('location')]",
            "apiVersion": "2021-09-01-preview",
            "properties": {
                "<dcr-properties>"
            }
        }
    ]
}

DCR Association -Azure VM

The following sample creates an association between an Azure virtual machine and a data collection rule.

Bicep template file

@description('The name of the virtual machine.')
param vmName string

@description('The name of the association.')
param associationName string

@description('The resource ID of the data collection rule.')
param dataCollectionRuleId string

resource vm 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines@2021-11-01' existing = {
  name: vmName
}

resource association 'Microsoft.Insights/dataCollectionRuleAssociations@2021-09-01-preview' = {
  name: associationName
  scope: vm
  properties: {
    description: 'Association of data collection rule. Deleting this association will break the data collection for this virtual machine.'
    dataCollectionRuleId: dataCollectionRuleId
  }
}

ARM template file

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "vmName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "The name of the virtual machine."
      }
    },
    "associationName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "The name of the association."
      }
    },
    "dataCollectionRuleId": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "The resource ID of the data collection rule."
      }
    }
  },
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Insights/dataCollectionRuleAssociations",
      "apiVersion": "2021-09-01-preview",
      "scope": "[format('Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/{0}', parameters('vmName'))]",
      "name": "[parameters('associationName')]",
      "properties": {
        "description": "Association of data collection rule. Deleting this association will break the data collection for this virtual machine.",
        "dataCollectionRuleId": "[parameters('dataCollectionRuleId')]"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Parameter file

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentParameters.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "vmName": {
      "value": "my-azure-vm"
    },
    "associationName": {
      "value": "my-windows-vm-my-dcr"
    },
    "dataCollectionRuleId": {
      "value": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourcegroups/my-resource-group/providers/microsoft.insights/datacollectionrules/my-dcr"
    }
   }
}

DCR Association -Arc-enabled server

The following sample creates an association between an Azure Arc-enabled server and a data collection rule.

Bicep template file

@description('The name of the virtual machine.')
param vmName string

@description('The name of the association.')
param associationName string

@description('The resource ID of the data collection rule.')
param dataCollectionRuleId string

resource vm 'Microsoft.HybridCompute/machines@2021-11-01' existing = {
  name: vmName
}

resource association 'Microsoft.Insights/dataCollectionRuleAssociations@2021-09-01-preview' = {
  name: associationName
  scope: vm
  properties: {
    description: 'Association of data collection rule. Deleting this association will break the data collection for this Arc server.'
    dataCollectionRuleId: dataCollectionRuleId
  }
}

ARM template file

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "vmName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "The name of the virtual machine."
      }
    },
    "associationName": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "The name of the association."
      }
    },
    "dataCollectionRuleId": {
      "type": "string",
      "metadata": {
        "description": "The resource ID of the data collection rule."
      }
    }
  },
  "resources": [
    {
      "type": "Microsoft.Insights/dataCollectionRuleAssociations",
      "apiVersion": "2021-09-01-preview",
      "scope": "[format('Microsoft.HybridCompute/machines/{0}', parameters('vmName'))]",
      "name": "[parameters('associationName')]",
      "properties": {
        "description": "Association of data collection rule. Deleting this association will break the data collection for this Arc server.",
        "dataCollectionRuleId": "[parameters('dataCollectionRuleId')]"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Parameter file

{
  "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentParameters.json#",
  "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
  "parameters": {
    "vmName": {
      "value": "my-hybrid-vm"
    },
    "associationName": {
      "value": "my-windows-vm-my-dcr"
    },
    "dataCollectionRuleId": {
      "value": "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourcegroups/my-resource-group/providers/microsoft.insights/datacollectionrules/my-dcr"
    }
   }
}

Edit a DCR

To edit a DCR, you can use any of the methods described in the previous section to create a DCR using a modified version of the JSON.

If you need to retrieve the JSON for an existing DCR, you can copy it from the JSON View for the DCR in the Azure portal. You can also retrieve it using an API call as shown in the following PowerShell example.

$ResourceId = "<ResourceId>" # Resource ID of the DCR to edit
$FilePath = "<FilePath>" # Store DCR content in this file
$DCR = Invoke-AzRestMethod -Path ("$ResourceId"+"?api-version=2022-06-01") -Method GET
$DCR.Content | ConvertFrom-Json | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 20 | Out-File -FilePath $FilePath

For a tutorial that walks through the process of retrieving and then editing an existing DCR, see Tutorial: Edit a data collection rule (DCR).