Gen2 - should be dafault for building Images in Azure

[MariuszFerdyn]

Description

Generate Gen2 Images as default. Is it possible to Generate Gen2 Images at all?

Platforms affected

• Azure DevOps
• GitHub Actions - Standard Runners
• GitHub Actions - Larger Runners

Runner images affected

• Ubuntu 22.04
• Ubuntu 24.04
• macOS 13
• macOS 13 Arm64
• macOS 14
• macOS 14 Arm64
• macOS 15
• macOS 15 Arm64
• macOS 26 Arm64
• Windows Server 2019
• Windows Server 2022
• Windows Server 2025

Image version and build link

Ubuntu2204

Is it regression?

no

Expected behavior

I am creating Image using:

git clone https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments.git
cd ./virtual-environments
Import-Module .\helpers\GenerateResourcesAndImage.ps1
GenerateResourcesAndImage -SubscriptionId ${{ secrets.SUBSCRIPTIONID }} -ResourceGroupName ${{ vars.UbuntuImageResourceGroup }} -ImageGenerationRepositoryRoot "$pwd" -ImageType Ubuntu2204 -AzureLocation ${{ vars.Region }} -AzureClientId ${{ secrets.APPLICATIONID }} -AzureClientSecret ${{ secrets.SECRET }} -AzureTenantId ${{ secrets.TENANTID }}

But it generate Gen1 Image, It should Generate Gen2 as default. Is it possible to Generate Gen2 Images at all?

Actual behavior

By default GenerateResourcesAndImage.ps1 generate Gen1 Image, It should Generate Gen2 as default. Is it possible to Generate Gen2 Images at all?

Repro steps

git clone https://github.com/actions/virtual-environments.git
cd ./virtual-environments
Import-Module .\helpers\GenerateResourcesAndImage.ps1
GenerateResourcesAndImage -SubscriptionId ${{ secrets.SUBSCRIPTIONID }} -ResourceGroupName ${{ vars.UbuntuImageResourceGroup }} -ImageGenerationRepositoryRoot "$pwd" -ImageType Ubuntu2204 -AzureLocation ${{ vars.Region }} -AzureClientId ${{ secrets.APPLICATIONID }} -AzureClientSecret ${{ secrets.SECRET }} -AzureTenantId ${{ secrets.TENANTID }}

[Alexey-Ayupov]

Hello @MariuszFerdyn, thank you for bringing this to our attention. I wanted to clarify that this isn't actually a bug in the traditional sense. The script was intentionally designed to generate only Gen1 images because at the time of its creation, Gen2 images weren't available yet.

We appreciate you pointing this out, and we'll definitely look into updating the script to support both Gen1 and Gen2 images to better meet current needs.

[MariuszFerdyn]

I think for workaround we can modify these Add e.g.: "ubuntu24-gen2" with sku server-gen2 I will try to check:

locals {
  image_properties_map = {
      "ubuntu22" = {
            publisher       = "canonical"
            offer           = "0001-com-ubuntu-server-jammy"
            sku             = "22_04-lts"
            os_disk_size_gb = coalesce(var.os_disk_size_gb, 75)
      },
      "ubuntu24" = {
            publisher       = "canonical"
            offer           = "ubuntu-24_04-lts"
            sku             = "server-gen1"
            os_disk_size_gb = coalesce(var.os_disk_size_gb, 75)
      }
  }

  image_properties = local.image_properties_map[var.image_os]
}

in locals.ubuntu.pkr.hcl