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Bring a Linux custom image from an Azure virtual machine

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The steps in this article show how to import a custom image that starts from an Azure virtual machine (VM). With this approach, you set up an image on an Azure VM and import the image into a compute gallery so that it can be used within Azure Lab Services. Before you use this approach for creating a custom image, read Recommended approaches for creating custom images to decide the best approach for your scenario.

Prerequisites

You'll need permission to create an Azure VM in your school's Azure subscription to complete the steps in this article.

Prepare a custom image on an Azure VM

  1. Create an Azure VM by using the Azure portal, PowerShell, the Azure CLI, or an Azure Resource Manager template.

    • When you specify the disk settings, ensure the disk's size is not greater than 128 GB.

  2. Install software and make any necessary configuration changes to the Azure VM's image.

  3. Optionally, you can generalize the image. If you decide to create a generalized image, follow the steps outlined in Step 1: Deprovision the VM. When you use the -deprovision+user command, it generalizes the image. But it doesn't guarantee that the image is cleared of all sensitive information or that it's suitable for redistribution.

    Otherwise, if you decide to create a specialized image, you can skip to the next step.

    Create a specialized image if you want to maintain machine-specific information and user profiles. For more information about the differences between generalized and specialized images, see Generalized and specialized images.

  1. In a compute gallery, create an image definition or choose an existing image definition.

    • Choose Gen 1 for the VM generation.
    • Choose whether you're creating a specialized or generalized image for the Operating system state.

    For more information about the values you can specify for an image definition, see Image definitions.

    You can also choose to use an existing image definition and create a new version for your custom image.

  2. Create an image version.

    • The Version number property uses the following format: MajorVersion.MinorVersion.Patch.
    • For the Source, select Disks and/or snapshots from the dropdown list.
    • For the OS disk property, choose your Azure VM's disk that you created in previous steps.

Create a lab

Create the lab in Lab Services, and select the custom image from the compute gallery.

Next steps