I have created a release pipeline for an azure function that I developed. But to publish the artifact to the azure resource, is there a way I can deploy it through PAT (like how we publish VSS extensions to the marketplace). Because the subscription belongs to another person but I want to be able to deploy. If not PAT is there an alternate way to deploy when I don't have the subscription? Thanks
Don't know if it makes sense because I am new to this :)
You can use Service Connection to Azure Resource Manager with Service Principal in "Manual mode".
Manual subscription pipeline. In this mode, you must specify the
service principal you want to use to connect to Azure. The service
principal specifies the resources and the access levels that will be
available over the connection. Use this approach when you need to
connect to an Azure account using different credentials from those you
are currently logged on with in Azure Pipelines or TFS. This is also a
useful way to maximize security and limit access.
First ask an owner of the subscription to create a Service Principal (app registration) with access to subscription, then it will be just a matter of creating service connection in DevOps (project settings -> pipelines -> service connections) with proper service principal id, key, subscription id, name etc.
You can find really good tutorial for that here
Related
Stuff in Azure are secured with Service Accounts. In order for me to see stuff I need to download the Service Account certificate and then log in via the Azure CLI using the extracted certificate and the Service Account Application Id. So now I can see everything the Service Account can see, great. But it is a pain in the neck and slow. So my question: Can I use the same certificate and credentials to log into the Azure Portal website so I can browse around using the web browser instead?
Using a Service Principal for interactive logins to the Azure Portal is not possible - which is by design. In order to be able to see the same resources as the Service Principal through the Azure Portal, you would require a user account that holds the Azure RBAC Reader role against those resources that are in scope of the Service Principal role assignments.
As you mentioned performance being an issue with using the Service Principal login, you could try Azure Resource Graph queries. These are supported by Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell as well as all the major Azure SDK's. Obviously, this won't bring you the visual experience like the Azure Portal but might resolve the performance piece maybe.
However, requesting/creating a user account that has the corresponding RBAC roles assigned would be the only way to allow you to see the resources through the Azure Portal.
I want to use the "ARM template deployment" task in Azure pipelines, and for this, I need to set up a service connection of type "Azure Resource Manager connection". So I head over to the Service connections pane. And it turns out that in order to configure this service connection, one of the authentication methods is using a service principal.
So I'v tried learning a little bit about service principals, and what I've understood so far is as such:
App registration is the process of registering applications which I want to delegate identity and access management to Azure AD for. A service principal is a concrete instantiation of the Application object that I create in my Azure AD tenant.
I didn't yet get my head around all these concepts well enough, but what I don't even start to understand is what does all that have to do with an authentication method for a Azure Resource Manager service connection in Azure DevOps??
Can someone please clear up the fog for me?
Azure Devops is not integrated with Azure portal by any means. Also, Azure Devops is not a trusted service even by Microsoft itself.
The Service Connection will help you to establish a connection between Azure portal and Azure Devops. Here, the service principal acts like a user account to establish the connection.
First of all, for using the task "ARM template deployment" in Azure DevOps pipeline, this task is used to deploy Azure Resource Manager templates at resource group deployment scope, subscription deployment scope and management group deployment scopes. The task is also used to create or update a resource group in Azure.
And you should select your Azure Resource and specified subscription which are the prerequisites of the task usage, then for connecting to a subscription which is associated with an Azure Active Directory tenant when building pipeline, it is needed to create a Service connection to help work between pipeline and connect to Azure Subscription. For more info, you can refer to doc:
Azure DevOps Connection Services. And you should also login authenticate via service principle instead of user, it is just like Azure log in.
Besides, you can also manage your Azure subscriptions at scale with management groups via this doc: Organize subscriptions into management groups and assign roles to users for Microsoft Defender for Cloud | Microsoft Learn .
I am trying to run an Azure Resource Group Deployment task in Azure Pipelines. I have deployed an Azure Pipelines self-hosted agent on an Azure VM running Windows, and in my Azure DevOps organization I have set up an Azure Resource Manager service connection to a VM with a managed service identity.
However, I get the following error when trying to configure my Azure Resource Group Deployment task with my service connection with managed identity:
GetUserAccessToken: Failed to obtain an access token of identity . AAD returned silent failure.
Screenshot:
I have already verified that I granted access (Contributor) to the VM's managed identity to the target resource group:
The service connection is also scoped to the Azure subscription:
Any help on diagnosing this issue is appreciated. Thanks!
Failed to obtain an access token typically occur when your session has expired.
To resolve these issues:
Sign out of Azure Pipelines or TFS.
Open an InPrivate or incognito browser window and navigate to https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/team-services/.
If you are prompted to sign out, do so.
Sign in using the appropriate credentials.
Choose the organization you want to use from the list.
Select the project you want to add the service connection to.
Create the service connection you need by opening the Settings page. Then, select Services > New service connection > Azure Resource Manager.
Refer to:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/pipelines/release/azure-rm-endpoint?view=azure-devops#sessionexpired
In case this is useful to anyone else, I had a similar issue when modifying service connections through Azure DevOps. The solution provided by Charlie Brown pointed me in the right direction: The user in AAD isn't automatically added to the Azure DevOps Enterprise Application, so if you run into this it may mean that you need to add the user or group that's trying to access it through DevOps.
In my case I just added myself as and owner and user through the Azure Portal -> Azure Active Directory -> Enterprise Applications -> Azure DevOps.
I didn't have to create another user, nor modify anything with MFA.
It appears that the issue comes about because it is the user account authenticated to Azure DevOps that is retrieving subscription information. Azure DevOps is not using the managed identity to retrieve the subscription information.
In particular, my original Azure DevOps user account had MFA turned on to authenticate to an Azure subscription (e.g. portal.azure.com), but did not have MFA turned on to authenticate to Azure DevOps (e.g. dev.azure.com/). I think that this was causing the issue when failing to get an access token:
I created a different user account in my Azure AD, gave it access to my Azure DevOps organization, and made sure that this new user account had Reader permissions over the target subscription and did not have MFA turned on. This resolved the issue of getting subscription info when using managed identity:
My scenario getting this error was adding a Service Connection to a Management Group in Azure DevOps
GetUserAccessToken: Failed to obtain an access token of identity
{{GUID}}. AAD returned silent failure.
Fix for me was adding my account as a Project Collection Admin in DevOps... details below:
Tried every permission possible ... GA, ROOT Mgmt Group Owner (via AAD setting), target Mgmt Group Owner, Subscription Owner, App Administrator... In devops i am a project admin and i have Admin security role in service connections.
Interesting diff i have here, my Azure AD home tenant is different from my Azure Subscription AD tenant (i am a B2B Guest).
I actually tried to use a different DevOps tenant that has an AAD tied to the Azure Subscription tenant and it WORKED :( This lead me to diving further into what is different. Aside from the DevOps->AAD link, I am also COLLECTION admin on the working one, and only a project admin on the failing one. I made sure I had Management Group Owner rights and then added my account as a Project Collection Admin - WORKED!
Ref: https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/solutions/1246044/view.html
I have an ASP.NET MVC application and want to deploy it to Azure cloud service.
I have added Azure cloud service deployment task and trying to configure the subscription details using "New button". There are two fields which ask for user name and password. So I entered my credentials that I use to login to portal.azure.com. But I get an error during release process. Can you please help if I am missing anything?
2018-02-14T22:43:28.0976940Z ##[command]Import-Module -Name C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\AzureRM.Profile\2.1.0\AzureRM.Profile.psm1 -Global
2018-02-14T22:43:28.1499971Z ##[command]Add-AzureAccount -Credential System.Management.Automation.PSCredential
2018-02-14T22:43:31.8827701Z ##[error]AADSTS50079: The user is required to use multi-factor authentication.
The Azure classic portal has been retired, so you need to use the new portal and add Azure Resource Manager (Azure RM) service endpoint).
The simple way to add Azure RM service endpoint:
Create a new build definition
Add Azure App Service Deploy task, select the item in Available Azure subscription
Click Authorize button
After that, it will add related service endpoint to your team project.
Another way is that, you can refer to this blog to add service endpoint:
Connect your Azure subscriptions to VSTS in 3 clicks
You can create a set of deployment credentials that's different from your microsoft account's credentials.
Everything is pretty well explained here:
When you log into Microsoft Azure you are logging in with a Microsoft Account. This account lets you add, modify, and remove
resources within your Azure subscription. Some Azure resources such
as Websites and Mobile Services require a separate deployment
credential to publish code. This separate deployment credential can
be confusing and I wanted to document a few key points:
The username you choose for the deployment credential must be unique
across all Azure subscribers.
The deployment credential you create is
tied to your Microsoft account and is the same credential for all
Azure resources which require a deployment credential.
You do not
want to share your deployment credential. Again, this credential has
access to publish code to all Websites and Mobile Services that your
Microsoft account can administer
We have a VSTS Azure Resource Manager Service Endpoint that uses a Service Principal to connect to Azure. This service principal was created manually. I was wondering if this service principle is impacted by the Azure AD signing key roll over and whether it will handle it automatically.
If you are using a service principal created through VSTS, there shouldn't be a problem. If it's created another way, you'll want to check this article from the Azure team about the rollover.