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.
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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 have created an automated Service Principal from the service requests on Azure Devops with sufficient permissions. Now, when I am trying to create an artifact which is an ML model (registered) it is not auto populating the registered models and resulting in an error.
I am using a free trial Azure account and attempting to implement CI CD for ML. I turned my firewall off and attempted as well but still the issue persists.
It appears that the Service Principal is not assigned the role in the appropriate subscription.
You need to grant the service principal Azure subscription access permission:
Login Azure portal->All service->Subscriptions->click your subscription->Access control(IAM)->Add role assignment->assign the correct role to your service principal
Refer to Use the portal to create an Azure AD application and service principal that can access resources and Assign Azure roles using the Azure portal for details.
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
What is recommended for the Azure devops service connection, when would I go for Service Principal manual (or) Service Principal automatic?
They are both ok, the differences are like blew, just choose one to use depending on your preference.
Service Principal (automatic): It will create an AD App along with the service principal in Azure AD for you automatically and use it in the service connection.
Service Principal (manual): You need to create the AD App along with the service principal manually in Azure AD and configure it when you create the service connection.