Azure Update Manager on Rocky Linux - publisher 'resf'

Question

Hi,

I've to schedule patching activities on a bunch of Rocky Linux 9 VMs on Azure.
According to this document, the publisher "erockyenterprisesoftwarefoundationinc1653071250513" has two images supported by Azure Update Manager.

According to the Rocky Linux Forum , the publisher name has changed from "erockyenterprisesoftwarefoundationinc1653071250513" to "resf".

So my question is: Will the new publisher be supported by Azure Update Manager? What's the timeline? My concern is that also Update Management has been retired so I have no Azure-native solution for this.

This is the resulting error on the console:

Thanks,
Lorenzo

Answer 1

Hello Lorenzo Dalla Pozza,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A and thank you for posting your questions here.

I understand that you're having issue on Azure Update Manager on Rocky Linux - publisher 'resf'.

As of now, the legacy publisher (erockyenterprisesoftwarefoundationinc1653071250513) is officially supported, but the new publisher (resf) may not yet be fully integrated into AUM.

Check Official Documentation - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/update-manager/operating-system-support for Rocky Linux. If resf is not listed, AUM will not recognize it until Microsoft updates its compatibility matrix.

About the timeline, Microsoft and RESF (Rocky Enterprise Software Foundation) typically coordinate publisher changes, but no public timeline is available. Contact Azure Support to raise a support ticket via the Azure Portal and Monitor Rocky Linux/Microsoft Announcements via this link - https://rockylinux.org/news/azure-image-status/

About the error and how to fix it:

Check your OS - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/update-manager/operating-system-support If unsupported, escalate to Microsoft by raising a ticket. If resf is not listed, Azure Update Manager does not support it yet. You can even check the VM’s image reference using Azure CLI:

az vm show --resource-group <resource-group> --name <vm-name> --query "storageProfile.imageReference" --output json

If the publisher field shows "resf", but updates fail, then resf is currently unsupported.

Then, use alternative patching methods like Azure Automation or Ansible, If Azure Update Manager does not support resf, use alternatives like:

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/collections/ansible/builtin/dnf_module.html or Terraform + Azure VM Extensions to deploy update scripts across multiple VMs. - https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/azurerm/latest/docs/resources/virtual_machine_extension

Secondly, consider rolling back to the old publisher (erockyenterprisesoftwarefoundationinc1653071250513), if security updates are critical and resf is not supported, redeploy Rocky Linux VMs using the older publisher:

az vm create --resource-group <resource-group> \
    --name MyRockyVM \
    --image erockyenterprisesoftwarefoundationinc1653071250513:rockylinux:9:latest \
    --admin-username azureuser \
    --generate-ssh-keys

This ensures compatibility until resf is supported.

Thirdly, immediate workarounds for Patching Rocky Linux VMs, if resf is not yet supported, use manual patch VMs using dnf update or automation tools. - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-update-management If urgent, redeploy VMs with the legacy publisher - Instead of relying on unsupported publishers, create and update custom Rocky Linux images using Azure VM Image Builder:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/linux/image-builder-overview

Lastly, prepare for the future by creating custom images or using Azure VM Image Builder, push Microsoft for resf support and plan for custom images could be a great long-term solution.

I hope this is helpful! Do not hesitate to let me know if you have any other questions or clarifications.

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