Understanding Azure Built-in Roles
Azure provides a set of predefined roles that grant specific permissions to users, groups, and applications. These roles simplify the process of managing access control within your Azure environment, ensuring that only authorized individuals can perform specific actions on your resources.
Built-in roles cover common scenarios, such as:
- Owner: Full access to all resources, including the right to delegate access to others.
- Contributor: Can create and manage all types of Azure resources but cannot grant access to others.
- Reader: Can view everything in your Azure subscription but cannot make any changes.
- User Access Administrator: Manages user access to Azure resources.
In addition to these foundational roles, Azure offers a wide array of granular roles tailored for specific services and management tasks. Below are some examples of common and powerful built-in roles:
Key Built-in Roles
Virtual Machine Contributor
Lets you manage virtual machines but not access the storage account where they are stored or the virtual network they are connected to.
Storage Blob Data Contributor
Allows for read, write, and delete access to Azure Storage blobs.
App Service Contributor
Lets you manage App Service apps, but not access their data.
Network Contributor
Lets you manage everything network-related, but not access to the virtual machines that use them.
SQL DB Contributor
Lets you manage SQL databases, but not access their data.
Monitoring Contributor
Lets you read all monitoring data and create/manage monitoring resources.
Custom Roles
While built-in roles cover many scenarios, you can also create custom roles to define precisely the permissions your users and applications need. This provides the most granular control over access to your Azure resources.
For a complete and up-to-date list of all Azure built-in roles and their associated permissions, please refer to the official Azure documentation.