How to Find Azure Marketplace VM Images with Azure PowerShell

This article describes how to use Azure PowerShell to find VM images in the Azure Marketplace. You can then specify a Marketplace image and plan information when you create a VM.

 

Terminology

A Marketplace image in Azure has the following attributes:

• Publisher: The organization that created the image. Examples: Canonical, MicrosoftWindowsServer
• Offer: The name of a group of related images created by a publisher. Examples: UbuntuServer, WindowsServer
• SKU: An instance of an offer, such as a major release of a distribution. Examples: 18.04-LTS, 2019-Datacenter
• Version: The version number of an image SKU.

List Publishers

Before you begin, let’s connect to Microsoft Azure using PowerShell.

You can use PowerShell to narrow down a list of images. Replace the values of the variables to meet your needs.

List the image publishers using Get-AzVMImagePublisher.

$locName="EastUS"
Get-AzVMImagePublisher -Location $locName | Select PublisherName

For example, we’ll get the list of the Publishes for Windows OS in the East US location.:

PS C:\> Get-AzVMImagePublisher -Location $locName | `
Where-Object { ($_.PublisherName -like '*MicrosoftWindows*')}

#Output
PublisherName                 Location
-------------                 --------
MicrosoftWindowsDesktop       eastus
MicrosoftWindowsServer        eastus
MicrosoftWindowsServerHPCPack eastus

List Image Offers

For a given publisher, list their offers using Get-AzVMImageOffer.

$pubName="<publisher>"
Get-AzVMImageOffer -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName | Select Offer

For example, we’ll get the list of image offers for Windows Desktop.

PS C:\> $locName = "EastUS"
PS C:\> $pubName = "MicrosoftWindowsDesktop"
PS C:\> Get-AzVMImageOffer -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName | Select Offer

#Output
Offer
-----
Windows-10
windows-10-1607-vhd-client-prod-stage
windows-10-1803-vhd-client-prod-stage
windows-10-1809-vhd-client-office-prod-stage
windows-10-1809-vhd-client-prod-stage
windows-10-20h2-vhd-client-office-prod-stage
windows-10-20h2-vhd-client-prod-stage
windows-10-ppe
windows-11
windows-7
windows-7-0-sp1-vhd-client-prod-stage
windows-ent-cpc
windows-evd
windows10preview
windows11preview
windows11preview-arm64

List Image Skus

For a given publisher and offer, list the SKUs available using Get-AzVMImageSku.

$offerName="<offer>"
Get-AzVMImageSku -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName -Offer $offerName | Select Skus

PS C:\> $locName = "EastUS"
PS C:\> $pubName = "MicrosoftWindowsDesktop"
PS C:\> $offerName = "windows-11"
PS C:\> Get-AzVMImageSku -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName -Offer $offerName | Select Skus

#Output
Skus
----
win11-21h2-avd
win11-21h2-ent
win11-21h2-entn
win11-21h2-pro
win11-21h2-pro-zh-cn
win11-21h2-pron
win11-22h2-avd
win11-22h2-ent
win11-22h2-entn
win11-22h2-pro
win11-22h2-pro-zh-cn
win11-22h2-pron

List Images

For a SKU, list the versions of the image using Get-AzVMImage.

$skuName="<SKU>"
Get-AzVMImage -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName -Offer $offerName -Sku $skuName 

PS C:\> $locName = "EastUS"
PS C:\> $pubName = "MicrosoftWindowsDesktop"
PS C:\> $offerName = "windows-11"
PS C:\> $skuName= "win11-22h2-pro"
PS C:\> Get-AzVMImage -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName -Offer $offerName -Sku $skuName 

#Output
Version
-------
22621.1105.230107
22621.1265.230207
22621.1413.230310
22621.819.221105
22621.963.221209

Now you can combine the selected publisher, offer, SKU, and version into a URN. Pass this URN with the -Image parameter when you create a VM with the New-AzVM cmdlet. You can also replace the version number in the URN with latest to get the latest version of the image.

Create a new VM from a marketplace image

If you already have the information about what image you want to use, you can pass that information into Set-AzVMSourceImage cmdlet to add image information to the VM configuration.

...

$vmConfig = New-AzVMConfig -VMName "myVM" -VMSize Standard_D1

# Set the Marketplace image
$publisherName = "MicrosoftWindowsServer"
$offerName = "WindowsServer"
$skuName = "2019-Datacenter"
$version = "latest"
$vmConfig = Set-AzVMSourceImage 
    -VM $vmConfig 
    -PublisherName $publisherName 
    -Offer $offerName 
    -Skus $skuName 
    -Version $version

...

$locName="EastUS"
Get-AzVMImagePublisher -Location $locName | Select PublisherName

$pubName="<publisher>"
Get-AzVMImageOffer -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName | Select Offer

$offerName="<offer>"
Get-AzVMImageSku -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName -Offer $offerName | Select Skus

$skuName="<SKU>"
Get-AzVMImage -Location $locName -PublisherName $pubName -Offer $offerName -Sku $skuName