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Create a legacy managed image of a generalized VM in Azure

  • How-to
  • 11/21/2024

Important

This article covers the older managed image technology. For the most current technology, customers are encouraged to use Azure Compute Gallery. All new features, like ARM64, Trusted Launch, and Confidential VM are only supported through Azure Compute Gallery. If you have an existing managed image, you can use it as a source and create an Azure Compute Gallery image. For more information, see Create an image definition and image version.

Once you mark a VM as generalized in Azure, you cannot restart the VM.

One managed image supports up to 20 simultaneous deployments. Attempting to create more than 20 VMs concurrently, from the same managed image, may result in provisioning timeouts due to the storage performance limitations of a single VHD. To create more than 20 VMs concurrently, use an Azure Compute Gallery (formerly known as Shared Image Gallery) image configured with 1 replica for every 20 concurrent VM deployments.

For information on how managed images are billed, see Managed Disks pricing.

Prerequisites

  • You need a generalized VM in order to create an image.

CLI: Create a legacy managed image of a VM

Create a managed image of the VM with az image create. The following example creates an image named myImage in the resource group named myResourceGroup using the VM resource named myVM.

az image create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name myImage --source myVM

Note

The image is created in the same resource group as your source VM. You can create VMs in any resource group within your subscription from this image. From a management perspective, you may wish to create a specific resource group for your VM resources and images.

If you are capturing an image of a generation 2 VM, also use the --hyper-v-generation V2 parameter. for more information, see Generation 2 VMs.

If you would like to store your image in zone-resilient storage, you need to create it in a region that supports availability zones and include the --zone-resilient true parameter.

This command returns JSON that describes the VM image. Save this output for later reference.

PowerShell: Create a legacy managed image of a VM

Creating an image directly from the VM ensures that the image includes all of the disks associated with the VM, including the OS disk and any data disks. This example shows how to create a managed image from a VM that uses managed disks.

Before you begin, make sure that you have the latest version of the Azure PowerShell module. To find the version, run Get-Module -ListAvailable Az in PowerShell. If you need to upgrade, see Install Azure PowerShell on Windows with PowerShellGet. If you are running PowerShell locally, run Connect-AzAccount to create a connection with Azure.

Note

If you would like to store your image in zone-redundant storage, you need to create it in a region that supports availability zones and include the -ZoneResilient parameter in the image configuration (New-AzImageConfig command).

To create a VM image, follow these steps:

  1. Create some variables.

    $vmName = "myVM"
$rgName = "myResourceGroup"
$location = "EastUS"
$imageName = "myImage"

  2. Make sure the VM has been deallocated.

    Stop-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Name $vmName -Force

  3. Set the status of the virtual machine to Generalized.

    Set-AzVm -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Name $vmName -Generalized

  4. Get the virtual machine.

    $vm = Get-AzVM -Name $vmName -ResourceGroupName $rgName

  5. Create the image configuration.

    $image = New-AzImageConfig -Location $location -SourceVirtualMachineId $vm.Id

  6. Create the image.

    New-AzImage -ImageName $imageName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Image $imageConfig

PowerShell: Create a legacy managed image from a managed disk

If you want to create an image of only the OS disk, specify the managed disk ID as the OS disk:

  1. Create some variables.

    $vmName = "myVM"
$rgName = "myResourceGroup"
$location = "EastUS"
$imageName = "myImage"

  2. Get the VM.

    $vm = Get-AzVm -Name $vmName -ResourceGroupName $rgName

  3. Get the ID of the managed disk.

    $diskID = $vm.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.Id

  4. Create the image configuration.

    $imageConfig = New-AzImageConfig -Location $location
$imageConfig = Set-AzImageOsDisk -Image $imageConfig -OsState Generalized -OsType Windows -ManagedDiskId $diskID

  5. Create the image.

    New-AzImage -ImageName $imageName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Image $imageConfig

PowerShell: Create a legacy managed image from a snapshot

You can create a managed image from a snapshot of a generalized VM by following these steps:

  1. Create some variables.

    $rgName = "myResourceGroup"
$location = "EastUS"
$snapshotName = "mySnapshot"
$imageName = "myImage"

  2. Get the snapshot.

    $snapshot = Get-AzSnapshot -ResourceGroupName $rgName -SnapshotName $snapshotName

  3. Create the image configuration.

    $imageConfig = New-AzImageConfig -Location $location
$imageConfig = Set-AzImageOsDisk -Image $imageConfig -OsState Generalized -OsType Windows -SnapshotId $snapshot.Id

  4. Create the image.

    New-AzImage -ImageName $imageName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Image $imageConfig

PowerShell: Create a legacy managed image from a VM that uses a storage account

To create a managed image from a VM that doesn't use managed disks, you need the URI of the OS VHD in the storage account, in the following format: https://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/vhdcontainer/vhdfilename.vhd. In this example, the VHD is in mystorageaccount, in a container named vhdcontainer, and the VHD filename is vhdfilename.vhd.

  1. Create some variables.

    $vmName = "myVM"
$rgName = "myResourceGroup"
$location = "EastUS"
$imageName = "myImage"
$osVhdUri = "https://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/vhdcontainer/vhdfilename.vhd"

  2. Stop/deallocate the VM.

    Stop-AzVM -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Name $vmName -Force

  3. Mark the VM as generalized.

    Set-AzVm -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Name $vmName -Generalized

  4. Create the image by using your generalized OS VHD.

    $imageConfig = New-AzImageConfig -Location $location
$imageConfig = Set-AzImageOsDisk -Image $imageConfig -OsType Windows -OsState Generalized -BlobUri $osVhdUri
$image = New-AzImage -ImageName $imageName -ResourceGroupName $rgName -Image $imageConfig

CLI: Create a VM from a legacy managed image

Create a VM by using the image you created with az vm create. The following example creates a VM named myVMDeployed from the image named myImage.

az vm create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name myVMDeployed \
  --image myImage\
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --ssh-key-value ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

CLI: Create a VM in another resource group from a legacy managed image

You can create VMs from an image in any resource group within your subscription. To create a VM in a different resource group than the image, specify the full resource ID to your image. Use az image list to view a list of images. The output is similar to the following example.

"id":
"/subscriptions/guid/resourceGroups/MYRESOURCEGROUP/providers/Microsoft.Compute/images/myImage",
"location": "westus", "name": "myImage",

The following example uses az vm create to create a VM in a resource group other than the source image, by specifying the image resource ID.

az vm create \
  --resource-group myOtherResourceGroup \
  --name myOtherVMDeployed \
  --image "/subscriptions/guid/resourceGroups/MYRESOURCEGROUP/providers/Microsoft.Compute/images/myImage" \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --ssh-key-value ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

Portal: Create a VM from a legacy managed image

Create a VM in Azure: Find image in portal, choose 'Create VM', fill in details, select size, adjust settings, and deploy.

  1. Go to the Azure portal to find a managed image. Search for and select Images.

  2. Select the image you want to use from the list. The image Overview page opens.

  3. Select Create VM from the menu.

  4. Enter the virtual machine information. The user name and password entered here will be used to log in to the virtual machine. When complete, select OK. You can create the new VM in an existing resource group, or choose Create new to create a new resource group to store the VM.

  5. Select a size for the VM. To see more sizes, select View all or change the Supported disk type filter.

  6. Under Settings, make changes as necessary and select OK.

  7. On the summary page, you should see your image name listed as a Private image. Select Ok to start the virtual machine deployment.

PowerShell: Create a VM from a legacy managed image

You can use PowerShell to create a VM from an image by using the simplified parameter set for the New-AzVm cmdlet. The image needs to be in the same resource group where you'll create the VM.

The simplified parameter set for New-AzVm only requires that you provide a name, resource group, and image name to create a VM from an image. New-AzVm will use the value of the -Name parameter as the name of all of the resources that it creates automatically. In this example, we provide more detailed names for each of the resources but let the cmdlet create them automatically. You can also create resources beforehand, such as the virtual network, and pass the resource name into the cmdlet. New-AzVm will use the existing resources if it can find them by their name.

The following example creates a VM named myVMFromImage, in the myResourceGroup resource group, from the image named myImage.

New-AzVm `
    -ResourceGroupName "myResourceGroup" `
    -Name "myVMfromImage" `
    -ImageName "myImage" `
    -Location "East US" `
    -VirtualNetworkName "myImageVnet" `
    -SubnetName "myImageSubnet" `
    -SecurityGroupName "myImageNSG" `
    -PublicIpAddressName "myImagePIP"

Next step

Store and share images in an Azure Compute Gallery