In the meantime, let’s get our pre-requisites setup. I’ll talk a little about some of the drawbacks a little bit later on in the post, compared with using the Azure/login action. Given that I’m writing this blog post, you’ve likely already guessed that I have found a solution. However, from my initial research - I wasn’t able to see a way use the Azure/login GitHub Action to deploy into Azure using a System Assigned Managed Identity. Typically, the process is to use the Azure/login GitHub Action, and then use the azure/cli or another Azure GitHub Action to deploy into GitHub. I recently started thinking about the typical setup process for a GitHub Action Workflow which will requires access to Azure. Granting the System-assigned managed identity the needed permissions.

Configuring the System-assigned managed identity.

Using the Azure/CLI GitHub Action & Installing Docker for needed dependencies.

Using the Azure/login GitHub Action & Installing Azure CLI for needed dependencies.

Installing the needed dependencies onto a self-hosted GitHub runner.

Setting up the GitHub Action self-hosted runner on a Virtual Machine.

Creating a Virtual Machine to host our GitHub self-hosted runner in Azure.

Hosted endpoint