Azure: how to reimage VM (ubuntu) via portal UI?

eos

12/13/23, 9:23 AM

We need to start again with the original ubuntu install. We could delete the vm and create a new one, but this is tedious, easy to get the wrong settings, and also gets a new IP when we have already whitelisted and setup DNS for the old ip, and also setup the AZure firewall settings for this server.

I understand there is a way via CLI, but we dont use this, we only use the UI.

I also understand that for an expert it is possible to separate the ip, config and firewall settings and apply them to a new server, and know how to clean these up when the server is no longer needed, but we are looking for a "reimage" button or feature which most other hostings have (e.g. linode, vpscity). This would save potentially days of time for us.

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Massimo

12/13/23, 9:31 AM

If the public IP address is your main concern, you can detach the current one from the VM, deploy a new VM and attach the IP address to it.

vidarlo

12/13/23, 9:59 AM

And you can usually export what you have as a template, and redeploy that template. The reason there's no reimage button is that it doesn't really make sense in Azure - they're mainly catering to people that like to automate things, and in an automated deployment, it's cheap to create new VMs.

eos

12/13/23, 10:36 AM

thanks for the reply. We would much rather use linode or hosting for normal (non guru admins), but our org only uses Azure unfortunately. Understood that Azure is only useful for those who want to automate. Looks like my answer is that there is no way to re-image a server unfortunately.

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Sam Cogan

12/14/23, 10:08 AM

There is no option to reimage, you essentially need to delete and recreate the machine. Regarding the issues you raised:

You can decrease the tediousness and reduce the chance of errors by using Infrastructure as Code to create the VM, that way you can recreate it with the same settings easily. Take a look at Microsoft Bicep tooling to do this. Its pretty quick to get started.
The IP for the VM is a separate object to the VM, you can delete the VM and retain the IP, and then attach this to your new VM

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