How to share Azure compute gallery to all Azure users.

In the previous article, we have seen how to create an image of Azure VM. When we create an Azure VM Image it will reside in storage and can be used any number of times we want for the creation of identical VMs. But let’s say we want this VM Image to be available across the entire company or multiple subscriptions so that any authorized team in the organization can create new VMs based on the image. We will see in this article how to achieve this requirement.

 

In Azure, we have the option to share the images and Azure compute gallery to make them available for all the required resources. In the previous article while creating an Azure VM Image we first created an Azure Compute Gallery. This Azure Compute Gallery acts as a repository of all the images we create.

 

Note: Microsoft does not recommend sharing the VM images individually and only recommends sharing the Azure compute gallery. Hence in this article, we will see how to share the Azure compute gallery.

 

When we login to the Azure portal and search for ‘image’ in the search box, we can see ‘Images’, click on it

 

After clicking it will show us all the VM image versions

 

Click on the ‘1.1.0’ image version which we created in the previous article

 

And it will show the overview page of the image version

 

To find to which Azure compute gallery this image belongs to, on the right-hand side we can see ‘Azure Compute gallery’. Here we can see this image belongs to the Azure compute gallery ‘VMIG’. Click on the VMIG

 

That will take us to the overview page of Azure compute gallery VMIG and here we can see all the images that are in this gallery and the details of the image like OS type, OS state, and so on.

 

On the left side of the page, we can see a section named ‘Sharing’. Once we click on it, we can see different sharing options available

 

Based on our requirement we can select the type of sharing. I’m selecting ‘RBAC+ share directly’ and at the bottom, we can see ‘Tenants and subscriptions’ under this we can select to what all tenants and subscriptions we want this has to be shared. After selecting click on ‘Save’. Once settings are saved this gallery images will be available for all the selected subscriptions and tenants.

A Tenant in Azure is nothing but an instance of Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) which contains information like objects, users and groups about a single organization. It also contains access and compliance policies and its primary function is resource access management and identity authentication.

 

The gallery can be shared with individual users, groups, service principals, and all users of specific subscriptions or tenants and also can be shared publicly to all users in Azure. Based on the sharing type we select it will depend on to whom we can share. Example: In the above screenshot I selected ‘RBAC+ share directly’ so when we select this option the gallery can be shared to individual users, groups, service principal, and all users of specific subscription or tenant but we cannot share publicly to all users in Azure.

 

 

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Thanks VV!!