AZ CLI VM Error

[Ibrahimgasali]

Describe the bug

az vm create : Invalid base64-encoded string: number of data characters (17) cannot be 1 more than a multiple of 4

Related command

vm create --resource-group AzureCLIDemoGroup --name AzureCLIDemoVM --image Ubuntu2204 --size Standard_B1s --admin-username azureuser --generate-ssh-keys --public-ip-sku Standard --nic-delete-option Delete --os-disk-delete-option Delete --output jsonc

Errors

Invalid base64-encoded string: number of data characters (17) cannot be 1 more than a multiple of 4

Issue script & Debug output

Invalid base64-encoded string: number of data characters (17) cannot be 1 more than a multiple of 4

Expected behavior

VM should be created via CLI

Environment Summary

"azure-cli": "2.71.0",
"azure-cli-core": "2.71.0",
"azure-cli-telemetry": "1.1.0",
"extensions": {}

Additional context

No response

[yonzhan]

Thank you for opening this issue, we will look into it.

[github-actions]

Here are some similar issues that might help you. Please check if they can solve your problem.

• az vm create : Invalid base64-encoded string: number of data characters (17) cannot be 1 more than a multiple of 4 #21940
• az vm create --secrets fails with "not a properly encoded Base64 string" #3062

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Possible solution (Extracted from existing issue, might be incorrect; please verify carefully)

Solution 1:

Delete your SSH key files (you could make a backup) and try the command with the latest version of the CLI. The SSH key files should be C:\Users\YourUsername\.ssh\id_rsa and C:\Users\YourUsername\.ssh\id_rsa.pub. Please tell if the same error still happens.

Reference:

• az vm create : Invalid base64-encoded string: number of data characters (17) cannot be 1 more than a multiple of 4 #21940 (comment)

Solution 2:

Use the ssh-keygen to generate a new SSH key in the user directory and make sure that the directory ~/.ssh exists, and then try the command again.

Reference:

• az vm create : Invalid base64-encoded string: number of data characters (17) cannot be 1 more than a multiple of 4 #21940 (comment)

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[yanzhudd]

please refer to the solution in this issue: #21940