You can configure security setting for Managed DevOps Pools during pool creation by using the Security tab, and after pool creation by using the Security settings pane.
Be default, Managed DevOps Pools are configured for a single organization, with access to the pool granted to all projects in the organization. You can optionally limit access to specific projects in the organization, and you can grant access to additional organizations if desired.
Use pool with a single organization
By default, Managed DevOps Pools is configured for use with a single Azure DevOps organization that you specify when you create the pool. When your pool is configured for a single organization, the organization name is displayed and configured in Pool settings
By default, Add pool to all projects is set to Yes, and access to the Managed DevOps Pool is granted to all projects in the organization. Choose No to specify a list of projects to limit which projects in your organization can use the pool.
Organizations are configured in the organizationProfile property of the Managed DevOps Pools resource.
{
"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"resources": [
{
"name": "fabrikam-managed-pool",
"type": "microsoft.devopsinfrastructure/pools",
"apiVersion": "2025-01-21",
"location": "eastus",
"properties": {
...
"organizationProfile": {
"organizations": [
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-tailspin",
"projects": [],
"parallelism": 4
}
],
"permissionProfile": {
"kind": "CreatorOnly"
},
"kind": "AzureDevOps"
}
}
]
}
The organizationProfile section has the following properties.
| Property |
Description |
organizations |
A list of the organizations that can use your pool. url specifies the URL of the organization, projects is a list of project names that can use the pool (an empty list supports all projects in the organization), and parallelism specifies the number of agents that can be used by this organization. The sum of the parallelism for the organizations must match the maximum agents setting for the pool. |
permissionProfile |
Specify the permission granted to the Azure DevOps pool when it is created. This value can be set during pool creation only. Allowed values are Inherit, CreatorOnly, and SpecificAccounts. If specificAccounts is specified, provide a single email address or a list of email addresses for the users property; otherwise omit users. For more information, see Pool administration permissions. |
kind |
This value specifies the type of organization for the pool, and must be set to Azure DevOps. |
Organizations are configured in the organization-profile parameter when creating or updating a pool.
az mdp pool create \
--organization-profile organization-profile.json
# other parameters omitted for space
The following example shows an organization-profile object that is configured for all projects in the fabrikam-tailspin organization with parallelism set to 1.
{
"AzureDevOps":
{
"organizations": [
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-tailspin",
"projects": [],
"parallelism": 1
}
]
}
}
The organizationProfile section has the following properties.
| Property |
Description |
AzureDevOps |
This value is the name of the object defined in organization-profile and must be set to Azure DevOps. |
organizations |
A list of the organizations that can use your pool. openAccess specifies whether Managed DevOps Pools configures Open access for the pool during pool creation, url specifies the URL of the organization, projects is a list of project names that can use the pool (an empty list supports all projects in the organization), and parallelism specifies the number of agents that can be used by this organization. The sum of the parallelism for the organizations must match the maximum agents setting for the pool. |
permissionProfile |
Specify the permission granted to the Azure DevOps pool when it is created. This value can be set during pool creation only. Allowed values are Inherit, CreatorOnly, and SpecificAccounts. If specificAccounts is specified, provide a single email address or a list of email addresses for the users property; otherwise omit users. For more information, see Pool administration permissions. |
Use pool in multiple organizations
Enable Use pool in multiple organizations to use your pool with multiple Azure DevOps organizations. For each organization, specify the projects that are permitted to use the pool, or leave blank to allow all projects. Configure the Parallelism for each organization by specifying what portions of the concurrency, as specified by Maximum agents for the pool, to allocate to each organization. The sum of the parallelism for all organizations must equal the maximum concurrency of the pool. For example, if Maximum agents is set to five, the sum of the parallelism for the specified organizations must be five. If Maximum agents is set to one, you can only use the pool with one organization.
In the following example, the pool is configured to be available for the FabrikamResearch and FabrikamTest projects in the fabrikam-tailspin organization, and to all projects in the fabrikam-blue organization.
If you receive an error like The sum of parallelism for all organizations must equal the max concurrency., ensure that the Maximum agents count for the pool matches the sum of the Parallelism column.
Add additional organizations to the organizations list to configure your pool for use with multiple organizations. The following example has two organizations configured. The first organization is configured to use Managed DevOps Pools for all projects, and the second organizations is limited to two projects. In this example, the maximum agents setting for the pool is four, and each organization can use two of these four agents.
"organizationProfile": {
"organizations": [
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-tailspin",
"projects": [],
"parallelism": 2
},
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-prime",
"projects": [ "fabrikam-dev", "fabrikam-test" ],
"parallelism": 2
}
],
"permissionProfile": {
"kind": "CreatorOnly"
},
"kind": "AzureDevOps"
}
Organizations are configured in the organization-profile parameter when creating or updating a pool.
az mdp pool create \
--organization-profile organization-profile.json
# other parameters omitted for space
Add additional organizations to the organizations list to configure your pool for use with multiple organizations. The following example has two organizations configured. The first organization is configured to use Managed DevOps Pools for all projects, and the second organizations is limited to two projects. In this example, the maximum agents setting for the pool is four, and each organization can use two of these four agents.
{
"AzureDevOps":
{
"organizations": [
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-tailspin",
"projects": [],
"parallelism": 2
},
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-prime",
"projects": [ "fabrikam-dev", "fabrikam-test" ],
"parallelism": 2
}
]
}
}
To configure open access for pipelines, you must have the following permissions in addition to the permissions described in Prerequisites - Verify Azure DevOps permissions.
By default, every pipeline definition must be explicitly authorized to run in a self-hosted agent pool (like a Managed DevOps Pool) before it is run for the first time in that pool.
Azure DevOps provides the following modes for authorizing pipelines to run in an agent pool.
- Authorize specific pipelines - Individually authorize specific pipelines from an Azure DevOps project to run in the pool. This method is the default.
- Open access - Configure an agent pool at project level to be available for all pipelines in that project.
Enable Allow all pipelines to run on the pool without an approval (open access) to configure the Open access agent pool setting in Azure DevOps when creating the pool.
Note
The Allow all pipelines to run on the pool without an approval (open access) setting can be configured by Managed DevOps Pools only when the pool is created. After the Managed DevOps Pool is created, you can view and configure Open access on the corresponding agent pool in Azure DevOps for each project that uses the pool.
Enable Allow all pipelines to run on the pool without an approval (open access) to configure access to the Managed DevOps Pool from all pipelines in the designated projects.
- If Add pool to all projects is set to Yes, Managed DevOps Pools configures Open access for all pipelines in all projects.
- If Add pool to all projects is set to No, Managed DevOps Pools configures Open access for all pipelines only in the listed projects.
If you enable Use pool in multiple organizations, you can specify Open access individually for each organization.
Note
The Open access setting is present when using api-version 2025-01-21 and higher.
Organizations are configured in the organizationProfile property of the Managed DevOps Pools resource. The following example has two organizations configured.
- The
fabrikam-tailspin organization is configured with Open access on all projects.
- The
fabrikam-prime organization is configured for availability with two projects, with Open access enabled only on these two projects.
"organizationProfile": {
"organizations": [
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-tailspin",
"projects": [],
"openAccess": true,
"parallelism": 2
},
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-prime",
"projects": [ "fabrikam-dev", "fabrikam-test" ],
"openAccess": true,
"parallelism": 2
}
],
"permissionProfile": {
"kind": "CreatorOnly"
},
"kind": "AzureDevOps"
}
Important
Open access is configured only during Managed DevOps Pool creation. To change the Open access setting after pool creation (including adding or removing projects from your Managed DevOps Pool configuration), you must manually configure Open access on the corresponding agent pool in Azure DevOps for each project that uses the pool.
The openAccess setting is configured in the organization-profile parameter when creating a pool.
az mdp pool create \
--organization-profile organization-profile.json
# other parameters omitted for space
The following orgaization-profile example has two organizations configured.
- The
fabrikam-tailspin organization is configured with Open access on all projects.
- The
fabrikam-prime organization is configured for availability with two projects, with Open access enabled only on these two projects.
{
"AzureDevOps":
{
"organizations": [
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-tailspin",
"projects": [],
"parallelism": 2
},
{
"url": "https://dev.azure.com/fabrikam-prime",
"projects": [ "fabrikam-dev", "fabrikam-test" ],
"parallelism": 2
}
]
}
}
Important
Open access is configured only during Managed DevOps Pool creation. To change the Open access setting after pool creation (including adding or removing projects from your Managed DevOps Pool configuration), you must manually configure Open access on the corresponding agent pool in Azure DevOps for each project that uses the pool.
If you try to run a pipeline that is not authorized to access your agent pool, you'll receive an error similar to This pipeline needs permission to access a resource before this run can continue. You can resolve this issue either by configuring open access, as described in the previous section, or by explicitly authorizing the pipeline to run in the agent pool.
If your tests need an interactive login for UI testing, enable interactive login by enabling the EnableInteractiveMode setting.
Interactive mode is configured in the osProfile section of the fabricProfile property. Set logonType to Interactive to enable interactive mode, or Service to disable interactive mode.
{
"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"resources": [
{
"name": "fabrikam-managed-pool",
"type": "microsoft.devopsinfrastructure/pools",
"apiVersion": "2025-01-21",
"location": "eastus",
"properties": {
...
"fabricProfile": {
"sku": {...},
"images": [...],
"osProfile": {
"secretsManagementSettings": {...},
"logonType": "Interactive"
},
"storageProfile": {...},
"kind": "Vmss"
}
}
]
}
Interactive mode is configured using the logonType property in the osProfile section in the fabric-profile parameter when creating or updating a pool.
az mdp pool create \
--fabric-profile fabric-profile.json
# other parameters omitted for space
The following example shows the osProfile section of the fabric-profile.json file with Interactive mode enabled.
{
"vmss": {
"sku": {...},
"images": [...],
"osProfile": {
"secretsManagementSettings": {...},
"logonType": "Interactive"
},
"storageProfile": {...}
}
}
Pool administration permissions
As part of the Managed DevOps Pool creation process, an organization level agent pool is created in Azure DevOps. The Pool administration permissions setting specifies which users are granted the administrator role of the newly created Azure DevOps pool. To view and manage the Azure DevOps agent pool permissions after the Managed DevOps Pool is created, see Create and manage agent pools - Security of agent pools.
- Creator only - The user that created the Managed DevOps Pool is added as an administrator of the Azure DevOps agent pool, and Inheritance is set to Off in the agent pool security settings. Creator only is the default setting.
- Inherit permissions from project - The user that created the Managed DevOps Pool is added as an administrator of the Azure DevOps agent pool, and Inheritance is set to On in the agent pool security settings.
- Specific accounts - Specify the accounts to be added as administrators of the created agent pool in Azure DevOps. By default the Managed DevOps Pool creator is added to the list.
Note
The Pool administration permissions setting is configured on the Security tab when the pool is created, and is not displayed in the Security settings after the pool is created. To view and manage the Azure DevOps agent pool permissions after the Managed DevOps Pool is created, see Create and manage agent pools - Security of agent pools.
Pool administration permissions are configured in the permissionsProfile property of the organizationProfile section of the Managed DevOps Pools resource.
{
"organizationProfile": {
"organizations": [...],
"permissionProfile": {
"kind": "CreatorOnly"
},
"kind": "AzureDevOps"
}
The permissionProfile property can be set during pool creation only. Allowed values are Inherit, CreatorOnly, and SpecificAccounts.
CreatorOnly - The user that created the Managed DevOps Pool is added as an administrator of the Azure DevOps agent pool, and Inheritance is set to Off in the agent pool security settings. Creator only is the default setting.
Inherit - The user that created the Managed DevOps Pool is added as an administrator of the Azure DevOps agent pool, and Inheritance is set to On in the agent pool security settings.
SpecificAccounts - Specify the accounts to be added as administrators of the created agent pool in Azure DevOps. By default the Managed DevOps Pool creator is added to the list. Provide a single email address or a list of email addresses for the users property; otherwise omit users.
{
"organizationProfile": {
"organizations": [...],
"permissionProfile": {
"kind": "SpecificAccounts",
"users" : ["[email protected]", "[email protected]" ]
},
"kind": "AzureDevOps"
}
Pool administration permissions are configured in the organization-profile parameter when creatinga pool.
az mdp pool create \
--organization-profile organization-profile.json
# other parameters omitted for space
{
"AzureDevOps":
{
"organizations": [...],
"permissionProfile": {
"kind": "CreatorOnly"
}
}
}
The permissionProfile property can be set during pool creation only. Allowed values are Inherit, CreatorOnly, and SpecificAccounts.
CreatorOnly - The user that created the Managed DevOps Pool is added as an administrator of the Azure DevOps agent pool, and Inheritance is set to Off in the agent pool security settings. Creator only is the default setting.
Inherit - The user that created the Managed DevOps Pool is added as an administrator of the Azure DevOps agent pool, and Inheritance is set to On in the agent pool security settings.
SpecificAccounts - Specify the accounts to be added as administrators of the created agent pool in Azure DevOps. By default the Managed DevOps Pool creator is added to the list. Provide a single email address or a list of email addresses for the users property; otherwise omit users.
{
"AzureDevOps" : {
"organizationProfile": {
"organizations": [...],
"permissionProfile": {
"kind": "SpecificAccounts",
"users" : ["[email protected]", "[email protected]" ]
}
}
}
Key Vault configuration
Managed DevOps Pools offers the ability to fetch certificates from an Azure Key Vault during provisioning, which means the certificates will already exist on the machine by the time it runs your pipelines.
To use this feature, you must:
Note
As of api-version 2025-01-21, if you use this feature you can only use a single identity on the pool. Support for multiple identities will be added soon.
Only one identity can be used to fetch secrets from the Key Vault.
Managed DevOps Pools certificate settings are set at the pool level, and some of the settings are specific for Windows or Linux. If your workflow requires both Linux and Windows images, you may have to divide them into multiple pools if you can't find a common set of certificate settings that work for both Windows and Linux.
The following settings configure the certificates fetched from your Key Vault.
Certificates (observedCertificates)
Specify the certificates to be fetched from your Key Vault and installed on all machines in your pool.
Certificate store location (certificateStoreLocation)
Specify the location to install the certificates on your agent.
- Windows agents: Specify
LocalMachine or CurrentUser.
- Linux agents: Certificate store location is only support on Ubuntu distributions. Specify the disk path to store the certificates, for example
/var/lib/waagent/Microsoft.Azure.KeyVault/app1.
For Ubuntu distributions, if you specify the trusted store location, for example /usr/local/share/ca-certificates, the certificate is added to that certificate store as root. For more information, see Install a root CA certificate in the trust store.
Certificate store name (certificateStoreName)
- Windows agents: Specify the name of the certificate store, either
My (local certificate store - default if no name is specified) or Root (trusted root location).
- Linux agents: This setting isn't used on Linux agents.
Exportable private keys (keyExportable)
Whether the key of the certificates is exportable. The default is false.
Key Vault integration is configured in Settings > Security.
Note
Key Vault integration settings can be configured only after the pool is created. Key Vault integration settings can't be configured during pool creation and are not displayed in the Security tab during pool creation.
Azure Key Vault is configured in the osProfile section of the fabricProfile property. Set the secretManagementSettings to be able to access the desired certificate.
Note
The osProfile.certificateStoreName property is only available in apiVersion 2025-01-21 and later.
{
"$schema": "https://schema.management.azure.com/schemas/2019-04-01/deploymentTemplate.json#",
"contentVersion": "1.0.0.0",
"resources": [
{
"name": "fabrikam-managed-pool",
"type": "microsoft.devopsinfrastructure/pools",
"apiVersion": "2025-01-21",
"location": "eastus",
"properties": {
...
"fabricProfile": {
"sku": {...},
"images": [...],
"osProfile": {
"secretsManagementSettings": {
"certificateStoreLocation": "LocalMachine",
"certificateStoreName": "Root",
"observedCertificates": [
"https://<keyvault-uri>/secrets/<certificate-name>"
],
"keyExportable": false
}
},
"storageProfile": {...},
"kind": "Vmss"
}
}
]
}
Azure Key Vault is configured in the osProfile section of the fabricProfile property when creating or updating a pool. Set the secretManagementSettings to be able to access the desired certificate.
az mdp pool create \
--fabric-profile fabric-profile.json
# other parameters omitted for space
The following example shows the osProfile section of the fabric-profile.json file with secretsManagementSettingsconfigured.
{
"vmss": {
"sku": {...},
"images": [...],
"osProfile": {
"secretsManagementSettings": {
"certificateStoreLocation": "LocalMachine",
"observedCertificates": [
"https://<keyvault-uri>/secrets/<certificate-name>"
],
"keyExportable": false
},
"logonType": "Interactive"
},
"storageProfile": {...}
}
}
Configuring SecretManagementSettings
Certificates retrieved using the SecretManagementSettings on your pool will automatically sync with the most recent versions published within the Key Vault. These secrets will be on the machine by the time it runs its first pipeline, meaning you can save time and remove tasks for fetching certificates.
Important
Provisioning of your agent virtual machines will fail if the secret cannot be fetched from the Key Vault due to a permissions or network issue.
For Windows, the Certificate Store Location is allowed to either be set to LocalMachine or CurrentUser. This setting will ensure that the secret is installed at that location on the machine. For specific behavior of how secret retrieval works, see Azure Key Vault extension for Windows.
For Linux, the Certificate Store Location can be any directory on the machine, and the certificates will be downloaded and synced to that location. For specifics on default settings and secret behavior, see Key Vault virtual machine extension for Linux.
See also
