How to pass an Azure pipeline variable to an ARM template used by AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3 task?

Question

I am trying to perform the following 2 steps in my Azure pipeline scheduled for every night:

Put a self-signed cert into a keyvault
Deploy Service Fabric cluster via ARM template and use the cert thumbprint and secret id as params.

The first step of creating the certificate in the keyvault works well for me:

# import the self-signed certificate ccg-self-signed-cert into the Keyvault
- task: AzurePowerShell@5
  inputs:
    azureSubscription: '${{ parameters.ArmConnection }}'
    ScriptType: 'InlineScript'
    azurePowerShellVersion: '3.1.0'
    Inline: |
      $Pwd = ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'MyPassword' -Force -AsPlainText
      $Base64 = 'MIIKqQ____3000_CHARS_HERE______1ICAgfQ=='
      $Cert = Import-AzKeyVaultCertificate -VaultName $(KeyVaultName) -Name my-self-signed-cert -CertificateString $Base64 -Password $Pwd
      echo "##vso[task.setvariable variable=Thumbprint;isOutput=true]$Cert.Thumbprint"

And I think I set the pipeline variable by the echo line (not quite sure, how to verify that...)

But how can I pass the pipeline variable holding the cert thumbprint value to the ARM template in the next pipeline task?

# deploy SF cluster by ARM template and use the SF Cluster certificate thumbsprint as admin cert
- task: AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3
  inputs:
    deploymentScope: 'Resource Group'
    azureResourceManagerConnection: '${{ parameters.ArmConnection }}'
    subscriptionId: 'XXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXX'
    action: 'Create Or Update Resource Group'
    resourceGroupName: '${{ parameters.resourceGroupName }}'
    location: 'West Europe'
    templateLocation: 'Linked artifact'
    csmFile: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)/pipelines/templates/sfcluster.json'
    csmParametersFile: '$(Build.SourcesDirectory)/pipelines/templates/sfcluster-params.json'
    deploymentMode: 'Incremental'

I am using the azure-quickstart-template for creating an SF cluster.

And if you look at it, it expects a certificate thumbprint as a parameter:

"certificateThumbprint": {
  "type": "string",
  "metadata": {
    "description": "Certificate Thumbprint"
  }
},

"certificateUrlValue": {
  "type": "string",
  "metadata": {
    "description": "Refers to the location URL in your key vault where the certificate was uploaded, it is should be in the format of https://<name of the vault>.vault.azure.net:443/secrets/<exact location>"
  }
},

How to pass the value from the AzurePowerShell@5 taks to the ARM template used by the subsequent AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3 task?

UPDATE:

I have tried following Nilay's suggestion and have put 3 variables into my sfcluster.json ARM template:

{
    "$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
    "contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
    "parameters": {
        "clusterName": {
            "type": "string",
            "defaultValue": "ccg-sfcluster",
            "minLength": 5,
            "metadata": {
                "description": "Name of the SF cluster"
            }
        },
        "certificateThumbprint": {
            "type": "string",
            "defaultValue": "[$env:THUMBPRINT]",
            "metadata": {
                "description": "Certificate Thumbprint"
            }
        },
        "sourceVaultResourceId": {
            "type": "string",
            "defaultValue": "[$env:KEYVAULTID]",
            "metadata": {
                "description": "Resource Id of the key vault, is should be in the format of /subscriptions/<Sub ID>/resourceGroups/<Resource group name>/providers/Microsoft.KeyVault/vaults/<vault name>"
            }
        },
        "certificateUrlValue": {
            "type": "string",
            "defaultValue": "[$env:SECRETID]",
            "metadata": {
                "description": "Refers to the location URL in your key vault where the certificate was uploaded, it is should be in the format of https://<name of the vault>.vault.azure.net:443/secrets/<exact location>"
            }
        }
    },
    "variables": {

However I get the syntax error:

2020-05-27T12:31:54.1327314Z There were errors in your deployment. Error code: InvalidTemplate.
2020-05-27T12:31:54.1354742Z ##[error]Deployment template language expression evaluation failed: 'The language expression '$env:THUMBPRINT' is not valid: the string character ':' at position '4' is not expected.'. Please see https://aka.ms/arm-template-expressions for usage details.
2020-05-27T12:31:54.1361090Z ##[debug]Processed: ##vso[task.issue type=error;]Deployment template language expression evaluation failed: 'The language expression '$env:THUMBPRINT' is not valid: the string character ':' at position '4' is not expected.'. Please see https://aka.ms/arm-template-expressions for usage details.

Similar error comes if I omit the square brackets in

"defaultValue": "$env:THUMBPRINT",

Hi @Alexander Farber , does Nilay's answer below helps to resolve your issue? Check this rule, you can consider accepting it as answer if it's helpful. It just a reminder :) — Kevin Lu-MSFT

bmoore-msft bmoore-msft · Accepted Answer · 2020-05-27T16:30:15

You need to set the override parameters on the deployment task. Remove all of those defaultValues you added to the template. You task yaml will look something like:

- task: AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3
  inputs:
    deploymentScope: 'Resource Group'
    action: 'Create Or Update Resource Group'
    overrideParameters: '-certificateThumbprint $(Thumbprint) -sourceVaultResourceId $(vaultId) -certificateUrlValue $(certUrl)'

The $(paren) syntax is how you reference a variable in the task defintion - so change those to whatever you named the variable.

How to pass an Azure pipeline variable to an ARM template used by AzureResourceManagerTemplateDeployment@3 task?

3 Answers