Ensure that VM agent is installed on Azure Virtual Machine

LOW

Description

The Azure Virtual Machine Agent is an important process that manages the interaction that Azure Fabric Controller has with the virtual machine. This includes administrative tasks, software installation, executing extensions, and more. Microsoft recommends having the agent installed on all virtual machines. For more information, see the Azure documentation.
References:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/extensions/agent-windows

Remediation

Once a Virtual Machine is created in the console, the choice to install the Windows agent cannot be changed. The agent is installed by default, however, so if you have chosen not to install it then simply create a new virtual machine without disabling it.

In Terraform -
Deprecated in favor of azurerm_linux_virtual_machine and azurerm_windows_virtual_machine:

  1. In the azurerm_virtual_machine resource, set os_profile_windows_config.provision_vm_agent to true.

References:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/extensions/agent-windows#install-the-vm-agent
https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/virtual_machine#provision_vm_agent

Policy Details

Rule Reference ID: AC_AZURE_0369
CSP: Azure
Remediation Available: Yes
Resource Category: Compute
Resource Type: Virtual Machine

Frameworks