Configure Service Principal Authentication for Azure Container Registry

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Configure Service Principal Authentication for Azure Container Registry

Azure Container Registry provides the functionality to store and share private container images. Within this hands-on lab, we’ll review the permissions for a service principal to access Azure Container Registry. This is helpful in scenarios where you have apps/scripts that need some form of automated access to push/pull images to/from your registry. We'll push and pull some images from the registry and run a container image.

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Lab Info

Level

Intermediate

Last updated

Sep 23, 2025

Duration

30m

Challenge

Confirm Service Principal Access to Push/Pull Container Images
1. Confirm the service principal has access via Azure RBAC to push/pull container images.
2. Collect the registry login server from the Azure portal. You'll need it later when <REGISTRY_LOGIN_SERVER> is specified.
Challenge

Push/Pull and Run Container Images Using the Service Principal
1. Log in to the VM.
2. Log in to the container registry using the service principal's credentials and the following code: docker login -u <SP_APPLICATION_ID> -p <SP_SECRET> <REGISTRY_LOGIN_SERVER>
3. Pull the ASP.NET sample container image from Microsoft's public repository using docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/samples:aspnetapp .
4. Tag the image with your repository using docker tag mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/samples:aspnetapp <REGISTRY_LOGIN_SERVER>/aspnetapp.
5. Push the image to your repository using docker push <REGISTRY_LOGIN_SERVER>/aspnetapp.
6. Retreive the local Microsoft image ID with docker image ls .
7. Remove the Microsoft image by running docker image rm <IMAGE_ID> -f.
8. Pull the image from your repository with docker pull <REGISTRY_LOGIN_SERVER>/aspnetapp.
9. Run the image with docker run -p 8080:8080 -d <REGISTRY_LOGIN_SERVER>/aspnetapp:latest.
10. Access http://localhost:8080 to confirm the container is running.

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