Upgrading existing Azure VM with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to Ubuntu Pro 18.04

Question

What are the steps to upgrade an existing Azure VM with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS to Ubuntu Pro 18.04. Is it possible without creating a new VM?

While you get community answers here, keep in mind that we are merely fellow users. We are not Azure nor Pro support, and have no special insight into those proprietary services. You might get a more authoritative answer by asking them directly. — user535733, Mar 21 '23 at 12:34

Aaron Whitehouse · Accepted Answer · 2023-08-09T08:17:08.503

Update: This is now possible natively in Azure. See https://ubuntu.com/blog/announcing-in-place-upgrade-from-ubuntu-server-to-ubuntu-pro-on-azure :

In Azure CLI run:

az vm update -g myResourceGroup -n myVmName --license-type UBUNTU_PRO

and then run these commands in the instance that you have converted:

sudo apt install ubuntu-advantage-tools
sudo pro auto-attach

Verify that Ubuntu Pro is enabled on your instance by running:

pro status --all --wait

Prior to this native functionality existing, the advice was as follows:

For new instances or instances that are easy to redeploy (e.g. launched programmatically in a CI/CD pipeline), the best option is to redeploy onto a new Azure Ubuntu Pro instance. These Ubuntu Pro instances on Azure attach to their entitlements automatically and will receive the extended security maintenance for 18.04 by default without further steps.
Contact Canonical for a token that could be manually attached to an instance. Now that native in-place upgrade to Ubuntu Pro exists, this is unlikely the best option.

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