Managing SSH Public Keys for Azure Virtual Machines

Question

Pulumi · Accepted Answer

To manage SSH public keys for Azure Virtual Machines, we will be utilizing the azure-native.compute.SshPublicKey resource from the Pulumi Azure Native provider. This resource allows you to create, update, and manage SSH public keys that can be associated with virtual machines in Azure. An SSH public key is used for secure remote login from one computer to another. It provides heightened security by requiring a matching private key to authenticate the session.

In this program, we'll go through the steps to create a new SSH public key resource in Azure. This involves specifying the name of the SSH public key, the resource group within which it's contained, and the actual SSH public key data (which should be the string representation of your public key following the SSH-RSA standard).

Below is a comprehensive Pulumi program in TypeScript that creates an SSH public key resource:

import * as pulumi from "@pulumi/pulumi";
import * as azureNative from "@pulumi/azure-native";

// Create an Azure Resource Group
const resourceGroup = new azureNative.resources.ResourceGroup("myResourceGroup");

// Provide the SSH public key string content here
const sshPublicKeyData = "<Your actual public SSH key here>";

// Create an SSH public key resource
const sshPublicKey = new azureNative.compute.SshPublicKey("mySshPublicKey", {
    // Replace these values with the desired ones for your infrastructure
    resourceGroupName: resourceGroup.name,
    sshPublicKeyName: "mySshPublicKeyName",
    publicKey: sshPublicKeyData,
    location: resourceGroup.location,  // e.g. "West US"
});

// Export the id of the public key so that it can be used to associate with a VM later
export const sshPublicKeyId = sshPublicKey.id;

Explanation:

First, we import the necessary modules from Pulumi's Azure Native package.
Then we create an Azure resource group by declaring a ResourceGroup resource. The name is set to "myResourceGroup", but you can choose any appropriate name.
We prepare the SSH public key content by entering the string of your public key, formatted appropriately for SSH-RSA.
We create the SshPublicKey resource, named "mySshPublicKey", with properties such as the resource group name, the new public key's name, the actual public key data, and the Azure region location.
Finally, we export the sshPublicKeyId which can be used to reference this public key when creating or managing virtual machines.

You will need to replace <Your actual public SSH key here> with your actual SSH public key.

Once this program is executed with Pulumi, it will provision an SSH public key resource in Azure, and the output will provide the ID of this resource which can be utilized when setting up an Azure Virtual Machine. This SSH public key resource can now be used to securely access the VMs that it's associated with.

To run this program, you'll need the Pulumi CLI installed and configured for use with your Azure account. Save this code in a file with a .ts extension (for TypeScript), and then you can deploy it using the pulumi up command within your terminal. This will start the provisioning process managed by Pulumi.