Ubuntu 24.04 ARM64

Option A: Azure Portal

• Go to the Azure Marketplace and search for "Ubuntu 24.04 LTS Arm64 SecureAnyCloud".
• Select the image and click Create.
• Configure the basics:
  • Subscription: Select your Azure subscription.
  • Resource Group: Create a new group or select an existing one.
  • Virtual Machine Name: Enter a name for your VM.
  • Region: Select your preferred Azure region.
  • Size: Select Standard_D2ps_v6 (recommended), which is an Arm64 size.
• Under Administrator Account, select SSH public key and enter your key.
• Under Inbound Port Rules, allow SSH (port 22).
• Click Review + Create, and then click Create.

Option B: Azure CLI

az vm image terms accept --urn sac1647283583153:ubuntu-24-04-arm64:default:latest
az vm create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name my-ubuntu-arm64-vm \
  --image sac1647283583153:ubuntu-24-04-arm64:default:latest \
  --size Standard_D2ps_v6 \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys \
  --public-ip-sku Standard

The --size must be an Arm64 family (Standard_D2ps_v6 above). Azure rejects an x86 size for an Arm image at create time.

Run these commands on your own workstation, not on the VM. Find the public IP, and then connect:

az vm show --resource-group myResourceGroup --name my-ubuntu-arm64-vm --show-details --query publicIps -o tsv ssh azureuser@<vm-ip>

There is no password to enter. If SSH asks you for one, your client is not offering the key you supplied at create time.

Check that the machine runs the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS release you expect, and confirm that it runs on Arm:

grep -E '^(NAME|VERSION|ID|VERSION_ID|PRETTY_NAME)=' /etc/os-release uname -srm dpkg --print-architecture

Expected output:

NAME="Ubuntu" VERSION="24.04.4 LTS (Noble Numbat)" ID=ubuntu VERSION_ID="24.04" PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS" Linux 6.17.0-1022-azure aarch64 arm64

The aarch64 output from uname and the arm64 output from dpkg both confirm that this is the native 64-bit Arm build, not an emulated or x86 image.

The image is fully updated at build time. Confirm that no upgrades are pending and that the update path is intact:

apt-get -s -o APT::Get::Always-Include-Phased-Updates=true dist-upgrade | grep -c '^Inst ' | sed 's/^/pending upgrades: /' apt-mark showhold dpkg -l | awk '/linux-image-[0-9]/{print $2, $3}'

The expected output shows pending upgrades: 0, no held packages and the installed Arm kernel:

pending upgrades: 0 linux-image-6.17.0-1022-azure 6.17.0-1022.22

The Always-Include-Phased-Updates=true flag matters on Ubuntu. Without it, a plain check can silently hide phased security updates that are held back on this particular machine.

This image also arms unattended-upgrades, so security updates are downloaded and applied on a timer without any action from you. You can still run updates on your own schedule:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get -y dist-upgrade

If the update installed a new kernel, reboot:

sudo systemctl reboot

Confirm that AppArmor is enforcing, root is locked and SSH accepts keys only:

sudo aa-status --enabled && echo "apparmor: enabled"
sudo passwd -S root
sudo sshd -T | grep -E '^(permitrootlogin|passwordauthentication|pubkeyauthentication) '

The expected output is:

apparmor: enabled root L 2026-08-07 0 99999 7 -1 permitrootlogin without-password pubkeyauthentication yes passwordauthentication no

without-password is how OpenSSH reports the prohibit-password setting. Both names mean the same thing: root may not authenticate with a password. The L from passwd -S means that the root account is locked.

Confirm that the Azure Linux Agent, cloud-init and time synchronization are healthy, that unattended security updates are armed, and check your resources:

systemctl is-active walinuxagent 2>/dev/null || systemctl is-active waagent cloud-init --version
systemctl is-enabled apt-daily-upgrade.timer apt-config dump | grep -E 'APT::Periodic::(Update-Package-Lists|Unattended-Upgrade) '
systemctl is-active systemd-timesyncd df -h / free -h

The Azure Linux Agent lets Azure provision your SSH key, resize the OS disk, run extensions and report VM health, so it should always be active.

When apt-daily-upgrade.timer is enabled and the apt periodic config contains Unattended-Upgrade "1", the machine keeps applying security updates on its own after launch.

The Azure Network Security Group (NSG) controls inbound and outbound traffic. It is the first place, and usually the only place, where you need to open a port. The image advertises a single inbound port, SSH on 22.

ufw (the Uncomplicated Firewall) is available on this image but left inactive by default. It does not filter traffic, so your NSG rules take effect exactly as written, with no second layer to keep in sync. Confirm what is listening before you open anything:

ss -tlnp

On a fresh machine the main listener is sshd on port 22. Only port 22 is advertised for inbound access, and the Azure NSG governs what is reachable from outside.

If your policy also requires a host firewall, enable the one that is already installed. Add the SSH rule first, before you enable ufw, so that you do not lock yourself out:

sudo ufw allow OpenSSH
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw enable

Once ufw is running, you must open a port in both the Azure NSG and ufw before traffic reaches your service.

The Ubuntu archive carries the application packages. Search it, and then install what you need:

apt-cache search nginx 2>/dev/null | sed -n '1,5p'

Install a package and enable it in the usual way. For example, run sudo apt-get install -y nginx followed by sudo systemctl enable --now nginx.

Everything in the archive is built for Arm, so apt resolves arm64 packages automatically. You do not need to configure anything for the architecture.

To add another administrator, follow these steps:

• Create the account with sudo adduser <name>.
• Add it to the sudo group with sudo usermod -aG sudo <name>.
• Copy your public key into /home/<name>/.ssh/authorized_keys with mode 600. Give the .ssh directory mode 700 and make that user its owner.

The image ships with no human accounts, so azureuser is the only login until you add one. To list the members of the sudo group, run:

getent group sudo