Export/Copy a managed disk to a storage account using the Azure CLI

This script exports the underlying VHD of a managed disk to a storage account in same or different region. It first generates the SAS URI of the managed disk and then uses it to copy the VHD to a storage account. Use this script to copy managed disks to another region for regional expansion. If you want to publish the VHD file of a managed disk in Azure Marketplace, you can use this script to copy the VHD file to a storage account and then generate a SAS URI of the copied VHD to publish it in the Marketplace.

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

Prerequisites

• Use the Bash environment in Azure Cloud Shell. For more information, see Quickstart for Bash in Azure Cloud Shell.

  

• If you prefer to run CLI reference commands locally, install the Azure CLI. If you're running on Windows or macOS, consider running Azure CLI in a Docker container. For more information, see How to run the Azure CLI in a Docker container.

  • If you're using a local installation, sign in to the Azure CLI by using the az login command. To finish the authentication process, follow the steps displayed in your terminal. For other sign-in options, see Sign in with the Azure CLI.

  • When you're prompted, install the Azure CLI extension on first use. For more information about extensions, see Use extensions with the Azure CLI.

  • Run az version to find the version and dependent libraries that are installed. To upgrade to the latest version, run az upgrade.

Sample script

Launch Azure Cloud Shell

The Azure Cloud Shell is a free interactive shell that you can use to run the steps in this article. It has common Azure tools preinstalled and configured to use with your account.

To open the Cloud Shell, just select Try it from the upper right corner of a code block. You can also launch Cloud Shell in a separate browser tab by going to https://shell.azure.com.

When Cloud Shell opens, verify that Bash is selected for your environment. Subsequent sessions will use Azure CLI in a Bash environment, Select Copy to copy the blocks of code, paste it into the Cloud Shell, and press Enter to run it.

Sign in to Azure

Cloud Shell is automatically authenticated under the initial account signed-in with. Use the following script to sign in using a different subscription, replacing <Subscription ID> with your Azure Subscription ID. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create an Azure free account before you begin.

subscription="<subscriptionId>" # add subscription here

az account set -s $subscription # ...or use 'az login'

For more information, see set active subscription or log in interactively

Run the script

#Provide the subscription Id where managed disk is created
subscriptionId="<subscriptionId>"

#Provide the name of your resource group where managed disk is created
resourceGroupName=myResourceGroupName

#Provide the managed disk name 
diskName=myDiskName

#Provide Shared Access Signature (SAS) expiry duration in seconds e.g. 3600.
#Know more about SAS here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/storage/storage-dotnet-shared-access-signature-part-1
sasExpiryDuration=3600

#Provide storage account name where you want to copy the underlying VHD file of the managed disk. 
storageAccountName=mystorageaccountname

#Name of the storage container where the downloaded VHD will be stored
storageContainerName=mystoragecontainername

#Provide the key of the storage account where you want to copy the VHD 
storageAccountKey=mystorageaccountkey

#Provide the name of the destination VHD file to which the VHD of the managed disk will be copied.
destinationVHDFileName=myvhdfilename.vhd

az account set --subscription $subscriptionId

sas=$(az disk grant-access --resource-group $resourceGroupName --name $diskName --duration-in-seconds $sasExpiryDuration --query [accessSas] -o tsv)

az storage blob copy start --destination-blob $destinationVHDFileName --destination-container $storageContainerName --account-name $storageAccountName --account-key $storageAccountKey --source-uri $sas

Clean up resources

Run the following command to remove the resource group, VM, and all related resources.

az group delete --name myResourceGroupName

Sample reference

This script uses following commands to generate the SAS URI for a managed disk and copies the underlying VHD to a storage account using the SAS URI. Each command in the table links to command specific documentation.

Command	Notes
az disk grant-access	Generates read-only SAS that is used to copy the underlying VHD file to a storage account or download it to on-premises
az storage blob copy start	Copies a blob asynchronously from one storage account to another

Next steps

Create a managed disk from a VHD

Create a virtual machine from a managed disk

For more information on the Azure CLI, see Azure CLI documentation.

Additional virtual machine and managed disks CLI script samples can be found in the Azure Linux VM documentation.