An Azure DevOps pipeline unavoidably uses confidential information such as usernames and passwords which need to be protected from unauthorised access and alteration. Azure DevOps enables this by allowing your Pipeline to reference variables stored in a Variable Group which itself can be configure in one of two ways, each approach described in detail the sections below.

• Define your variables in a Variable Group and protect those variables which are sensitive (e.g. access credentials) by marking each of them as Secret, or

• Protect all variables by storing them in as Secrets in an Azure Key Vault and defining a Variable Group linked to that Key Vault.

How many Variable Groups should you create?

We recommend creating a Variable Group per DataStage Engine.

• For DevOps scenarios this usually involves customers creating one Variable Group for each non-production environment (e.g. DEV and QA), and one for their production environment (assuming they use Azure DevOps to deploy to production)

• For DataStage upgrade scenarios most customers create…

  • one Variable Group for each non-production legacy environment,

  • one Variable Group for each non-production target environment, where upgrade acceptance testing will take place,

  • one Variable Groups for each production legacy environment, if they want to use Azure DevOps to deploy to their legacy production environment while they plan their cutover

Create a Variable Group including secret variables

In your project in Azure DevOps select Pipeline → Library → + Variable Group.

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Give your variable group a name, description, and add the values you need in your pipeline. Do not select the Link secrets from an Azure key vault as variables toggle.

The variables you need to add to support the example Azure Pipelines shipped with MettleCI are described below (using the Azure CLI to describe them):

Create a Variable Group based on an Azure Key Vault

Microsoft have good documentation on creating an Azure Key Vault which we recommend you consult.

Ensure you…

• Create a Key Vault: Create one Key Vault per Variable Group. See our advice above on how may variable groups to create.

• Attach an Access Policy: This must provides the Get and List permissions for Secrets.

• Attach a Service Principal: This is simply an identity created for your application. You can create the service principal by using Azure CLI (see an example at the bottom of this page), or use the service principal created if/when your application is registered in Azure AD.

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Create a Variable Group linked to a Key Vault

Next, back in Azure DevOps, go to the Library within your Project and create a Variable Group. Make sure you select the Link secrets from an Azure key vault as variables toggle.

Click the Pipeline permissions tab and ensure that you give your pipeline permission to access this Variable Group:

Grant an Azure Pipeline access to your Variable Group

When executing your Pipeline for the first time you may see a prompt like this.

Click View then grant access on the dialog which appears.

Reference

Creating Azure assets using the Azure CLI