What Was the Problem?

I recently had to create a VM image for an Azure scale-set using packer.  Overall, the experience was great… but getting off the ground took me about an hour.  This was because most tutorials/examples assume you have contributor access to the whole subscription, but I wanted to do it with a service principal that just had access to a specific resource group.

Working Configuration

Basically, you just need the right combination (or lack-there-of) of fields.

The tricky ones to get right were the combination of build_resource_group_name, managed_image_resource_group_name, and managed_image_name while leaving out location.

There was a Git Hub issue chain on this (https://github.com/hashicorp/packer/issues/5873) that went on for a very long time before someone finally worked out that you had to leave out location when you wanted to do this without subscription level contributor access.

Here is a reference config file that works if you populate your details:

{
"builders":[
{
"type":"azure-arm",
"client_id":"your-client-id",
"client_secret":"your-client-secret",
"tenant_id":"your-tenant-id",
"subscription_id":"your-subscription",
"build_resource_group_name":"your-existing-rg",
"managed_image_resource_group_name":"your-existing-rg",
"managed_image_name":"your-result-output-image-name",
"os_type":"Linux",
"image_publisher":"OpenLogic",
"image_offer":"CentOS",
"image_sku":"7.5",
"azure_tags":{
"ApplicationName":"Some Sample App"
},
"vm_size":"Standard_D2s_v3"
}
],
"provisioners":[
{
"execute_command":"chmod +x {{ .Path }}; {{ .Vars }} sudo -E sh '{{ .Path }}'",
"inline":[
"yum -y install haproxy-1.5.18-8.el7",
"/usr/sbin/waagent -force -deprovision+user && export HISTSIZE=0 && sync"
],
"inline_shebang":"/bin/sh -x",
"type":"shell"
}
]
}