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What's new in Azure VM Image Builder

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Applies to: ✔️ Linux VMs ✔️ Windows VMs ✔️ Flexible scale sets ✔️ Uniform scale sets

This article contains all major API changes and feature updates for the Azure VM Image Builder (AIB) service.

Updates

November 2023

Azure Image Builder is enabling Isolated Image Builds using Azure Container Instances in a phased manner. The rollout is expected to be completed by early 2024. Your existing image templates will continue to work and there is no change in the way you create or build new image templates.

You might observe a different set of transient Azure resources appear temporarily in the staging resource group but that does not impact your actual builds or the way you interact with Azure Image Builder. For more information, please see Isolated Image Builds.

Important

Make sure your subscription is registered for the Microsoft.ContainerInstance provider and there are no policies blocking deployment of Azure Container Instances resources. Also ensure that quota is available for Azure Container Instances resources.

April 2023

New portal functionality has been added for Azure Image Builder. Search “Image Templates” in Azure portal, then click “Create”. You can also get started here with building and validating custom images inside the portal.

API releases

Version 2023-07-01

Coming Soon

Support for updating Azure Compute Gallery distribution targets.

Changes

New errorHandling property. This property provides users with more control over how errors are handled during the image building process. For more information, see errorHandling

Version 2022-07-01

Improvements

  • Added support to use the latest image version stored in Azure Compute Gallery as the source for the image template
  • Added versioning to support generating version numbers for image distributions. For more information, see properties: versioning
  • Added support for per region configuration when distributing to Azure Compute Gallery. For more information, see Distribute:targetRegions
  • Added new 'File' validation type. For more information, see validate properties
  • VHDs can now be distributed to a custom blob or container in a custom storage account. For more information, see Distribute: VHD
  • Added support for using a Direct Shared Gallery image as the source for the image template

Changes

  • replicationRegions is now deprecated for gallery distributions. For more information, use gallery-replicated-regions
  • VHDs can now be distributed to a custom blob or container in a custom storage account
  • targetRegions array added and applied only to "SharedImage" type distribute. For more information on targetRegions, see Azure Compute Gallery
  • Added support for using a Direct Shared Gallery image as the source for the image template. Direct Shared Gallery is currently in preview.
  • Triggers are now available in public preview to set up automatic image builds. For more information, see How to use AIB triggers

Version 2022-02-14

Improvements

Version 2021-10-01

Breaking change

API version 2021-10-01 introduces a change to the error schema that will be part of every future API release. If you have any Azure VM Image Builder automations, be aware of the new error output when you switch to API version 2021-10-01 or later. We recommend, after you've switched to the latest API version, that you don't revert to an earlier version, because you'll have to change your automation again to produce the earlier error schema. We don't anticipate that we'll change the error schema again in future releases.

Error output for version 2020-02-14 and earlier
{ 
  "code": "ValidationFailed",
  "message": "Validation failed: 'ImageTemplate.properties.source': Field 'imageId' has a bad value: '/subscriptions/subscriptionID/resourceGroups/resourceGroupName/providers/Microsoft.Compute/images/imageName'. Please review  http://aka.ms/azvmimagebuildertmplref  for details on fields requirements in the Image Builder Template." 
}
Error output for version 2021-10-01 and later
{ 
  "error": {
    "code": "ValidationFailed", 
    "message": "Validation failed: 'ImageTemplate.properties.source': Field 'imageId' has a bad value: '/subscriptions/subscriptionID/resourceGroups/resourceGroupName/providers/Microsoft.Compute/images/imageName'. Please review  http://aka.ms/azvmimagebuildertmplref  for details on fields requirements in the Image Builder Template." 
  }
}

Improvements

  • Added support for Build VM MSIs.
  • Added support for Proxy VM size customization.

Version 2020-02-14

Improvements

  • Added support for creating images from the following sources:
    • Managed image
    • Azure Compute Gallery
    • Platform Image Repository (including Platform Image Purchase Plan)
  • Added support for the following customizations:
    • Shell (Linux): Script or inline
    • PowerShell (Windows): Script or inline, run elevated, run as system
    • File (Linux and Windows)
    • Windows Restart (Windows)
    • Windows Update (Windows): Search criteria, filters, and update limit
  • Added support for the following distribution types:
    • VHD (virtual hard disk)
    • Managed image
    • Azure Compute Gallery
  • Other features:
    • Added support for customers to use their own virtual network
    • Added support for customers to customize the build VM (VM size, operating system disk size)
    • Added support for user-assigned Microsoft Windows Installer (MSI) (for customize/distribute steps)
    • Added support for Gen2 images

Preview APIs

The following APIs are deprecated, but still supported:

  • Version 2019-05-01-preview

Next steps

Learn more about VM Image Builder.