Simplify deployment of a machine configuration definition

[kilasuit]

Summary of the new feature / enhancement

origninally posted in Azure/bicep#17908

With the rise of DSC (formally known as PowerShell DSC) & WinGet as well as other well used Configuration technologies it would be beneficial to reduce the configuration for virtual machines to be able to point to a configuration file (directly or from a repository) like how I mention in this post of mine Wishes for Windows 12; the return of Windows Phone & **more**

The core change, whilst in bicep would be like this

resource vm 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines@2023-03-01' = {
  name: vmName
  location: location
  properties: {
    hardwareProfile: {
      vmSize: 'Standard_DS1_v2'
    }
    osProfile: {
      computerName: vmName
      adminUsername: adminUsername
      adminPassword: adminPassword
      windowsConfiguration: {
        enableAutomaticUpdates: true
        provisionVMAgent: true
        configurationName: 'Install-Git' // If this is a generic name like so then inside the configuration it should pick either dsc or winget on Windows
        configurationFile: 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Microsoft/Winget-Configurations/Install-Git.winget'
        // also support https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PowerShell/DSC-Configurations/Install-Git.dsc
        }
    }

or like this

 osProfile: {
      computerName: vmName
      adminUsername: adminUsername
      adminPassword: adminPassword
      linuxConfiguration: {
        configurationName: 'Install-Git' 
        configurationFile: 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PowerShell/DSC-Configurations/Install-Git.dsc'
        disablePasswordAuthentication: false
        provisionVMAgent: true
      }
    }

This could be extended to enable other configuration file formats (chef/ansible etc) & then install and kick off those agents as needed.

The benefit, is obviously less code, & the current need to add an extension that does this task.

I do realise the amount of work needed for this to happen, including redesign of how this would work in ARM and how reporting back should happen.

I realise this may be achievable with a module, but it would be nice if this was a native thing to the VM resource in bicep, of course needing this in ARM resource first & then could be implemented across other tooling like AzCli/AzPowerShell & all the other SDKs too, which I haven't raised an issue for this in those repos, as I feel it prob makes more sense to ask in here first.

Another potential added benefit (note this brought the configuration properties up a level as to allow for a single truely xplat configuration file) could also be a pointer to an interal ConfigurationRepo resource, that houses these like a fileshare etc or a private git repository etc etc

resource vm 'Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines@2023-03-01' = {
  name: vmName
  location: location
  properties: {
    hardwareProfile: {
      vmSize: 'Standard_DS1_v2'
    }
    osProfile: {
      configurationRepo: InternalConfigs
      configurationName: 'Install-Git'
      configurationFile: 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Microsoft/Winget-Configurations/Install-Git.winget'
         }
    }

Again I do realise the amount of work for this, and this is a be really nice to have to reduce authored code more than a absolute need.

Not sure who across other Azure Teams would need to input other than the Machine Config team

Proposed technical implementation details (optional)

No response

[Gijsreyn]

@kilasuit - something similiar that Michael Greene presented during Summit: https://youtu.be/hpKXIAjVccs?si=lz94SFryG7-rBAiC&t=447