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Deploy resources with ARM templates and Azure Resource Manager REST API

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This article explains how to use the Azure Resource Manager REST API with Azure Resource Manager templates (ARM templates) to deploy your resources to Azure.

You can either include your template in the request body or link to a file. When using a file, it can be a local file or an external file that is available through a URI. When your template is in a storage account, you can restrict access to the template and provide a shared access signature (SAS) token during deployment.

Required permissions

To deploy a Bicep file or ARM template, you need write access on the resources you're deploying and access to all operations on the Microsoft.Resources/deployments resource type. For example, to deploy a virtual machine, you need Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/write and Microsoft.Resources/deployments/* permissions. The what-if operation has the same permission requirements.

For a list of roles and permissions, see Azure built-in roles.

Deployment scope

You can target your deployment to a resource group, Azure subscription, management group, or tenant. Depending on the scope of the deployment, you use different commands.

The examples in this article use resource group deployments.

Deploy with the REST API

  1. Set common parameters and headers, including authentication tokens.

  2. If you're deploying to a resource group that doesn't exist, create the resource group. Provide your subscription ID, the name of the new resource group, and location that you need for your solution. For more information, see Create a resource group.

    PUT https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<YourSubscriptionId>/resourcegroups/<YourResourceGroupName>?api-version=2020-06-01

    With a request body like:

    {
 "location": "West US",
 "tags": {
   "tagname1": "tagvalue1"
 }
}

  3. Before deploying your template, you can preview the changes the template will make to your environment. Use the what-if operation to verify that the template makes the changes that you expect. What-if also validates the template for errors.

  4. To deploy a template, provide your subscription ID, the name of the resource group, the name of the deployment in the request URI.

    PUT https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/<YourSubscriptionId>/resourcegroups/<YourResourceGroupName>/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deployments/<YourDeploymentName>?api-version=2020-10-01

    In the request body, provide a link to your template and parameter file. For more information about the parameter file, see Create Resource Manager parameter file.

    Notice the mode is set to Incremental. To run a complete deployment, set mode to Complete. Be careful when using the complete mode as you can inadvertently delete resources that aren't in your template.

    {
 "properties": {
   "templateLink": {
     "uri": "http://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/templates/template.json",
     "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0"
   },
   "parametersLink": {
     "uri": "http://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/templates/parameters.json",
     "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0"
   },
   "mode": "Incremental"
 }
}

    If you want to log response content, request content, or both, include debugSetting in the request.

    {
 "properties": {
   "templateLink": {
     "uri": "http://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/templates/template.json",
     "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0"
   },
   "parametersLink": {
     "uri": "http://mystorageaccount.blob.core.windows.net/templates/parameters.json",
     "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0"
   },
   "mode": "Incremental",
   "debugSetting": {
     "detailLevel": "requestContent, responseContent"
   }
 }
}

    You can set up your storage account to use a shared access signature (SAS) token. For more information, see Delegate access with a shared access signature.

    If you need to provide a sensitive value for a parameter (such as a password), add that value to a key vault. Retrieve the key vault during deployment as shown in the previous example. For more information, see Use Azure Key Vault to pass secure parameter value during deployment.

  5. Instead of linking to files for the template and parameters, you can include them in the request body. The following example shows the request body with the template and parameter inline:

    {
   "properties": {
   "mode": "Incremental",
   "template": {
     "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
     "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
     "parameters": {
       "storageAccountType": {
         "type": "string",
         "defaultValue": "Standard_LRS",
         "allowedValues": [
           "Standard_LRS",
           "Standard_GRS",
           "Standard_ZRS",
           "Premium_LRS"
         ],
         "metadata": {
           "description": "Storage Account type"
         }
       },
       "location": {
         "type": "string",
         "defaultValue": "[resourceGroup().location]",
         "metadata": {
           "description": "Location for all resources."
         }
       }
     },
     "variables": {
       "storageAccountName": "[format('{0}standardsa', uniquestring(resourceGroup().id))]"
     },
     "resources": [
       {
         "type": "Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts",
         "apiVersion": "2022-09-01",
         "name": "[variables('storageAccountName')]",
         "location": "[parameters('location')]",
         "sku": {
           "name": "[parameters('storageAccountType')]"
         },
         "kind": "StorageV2",
         "properties": {}
       }
     ],
     "outputs": {
       "storageAccountName": {
         "type": "string",
         "value": "[variables('storageAccountName')]"
       }
     }
   },
   "parameters": {
     "location": {
       "value": "eastus2"
     }
   }
 }
}

  6. To get the status of the template deployment, use Deployments - Get.

    GET https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourcegroups/{resourceGroupName}/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deployments/{deploymentName}?api-version=2020-10-01

Deploy with ARMClient

ARMClient is a simple command line tool to invoke the Azure Resource Manager API. To install the tool, see ARMClient.

To list your subscriptions:

armclient GET /subscriptions?api-version=2021-04-01

To list your resource groups:

armclient GET /subscriptions/<subscription-id>/resourceGroups?api-version=2021-04-01

Replace <subscription-id> with your Azure subscription ID.

To create a resource group in the Central US region:

armclient PUT /subscriptions/<subscription-id>/resourceGroups/<resource-group-name>?api-version=2021-04-01  "{location: 'central us', properties: {}}"

Alternatively, you can put the body into a JSON file called CreateRg.json:

{
  "location": "Central US",
  "properties": { }
}

armclient PUT /subscriptions/<subscription-id>/resourceGroups/<resource-group-name>?api-version=2021-04-01 '@CreateRg.json'

For more information, see ARMClient: a command line tool for the Azure API.

Deployment name

You can give your deployment a name such as ExampleDeployment.

Every time you run a deployment, an entry is added to the resource group's deployment history with the deployment name. If you run another deployment and give it the same name, the earlier entry is replaced with the current deployment. If you want to maintain unique entries in the deployment history, give each deployment a unique name.

To create a unique name, you can assign a random number. Or, add a date value.

If you run concurrent deployments to the same resource group with the same deployment name, only the last deployment is completed. Any deployments with the same name that haven't finished are replaced by the last deployment. For example, if you run a deployment named newStorage that deploys a storage account named storage1, and at the same time run another deployment named newStorage that deploys a storage account named storage2, you deploy only one storage account. The resulting storage account is named storage2.

However, if you run a deployment named newStorage that deploys a storage account named storage1, and immediately after it completes you run another deployment named newStorage that deploys a storage account named storage2, then you have two storage accounts. One is named storage1, and the other is named storage2. But, you only have one entry in the deployment history.

When you specify a unique name for each deployment, you can run them concurrently without conflict. If you run a deployment named newStorage1 that deploys a storage account named storage1, and at the same time run another deployment named newStorage2 that deploys a storage account named storage2, then you have two storage accounts and two entries in the deployment history.

To avoid conflicts with concurrent deployments and to ensure unique entries in the deployment history, give each deployment a unique name.

Next steps