List Azure deny assignments

Article
06/26/2024

Similar to a role assignment, a deny assignment attaches a set of deny actions to a user, group, or service principal at a particular scope for the purpose of denying access. Deny assignments block users from performing specific Azure resource actions even if a role assignment grants them access.

This article describes how to list deny assignments.

Important

You can't directly create your own deny assignments. Deny assignments are created and managed by Azure.

How deny assignments are created

Deny assignments are created and managed by Azure to protect resources. You can't directly create your own deny assignments. However, you can specify deny settings when creating a deployment stack, which creates a deny assignment that is owned by the deployment stack resources. Deployment stacks is currently in preview.

Compare role assignments and deny assignments

Deny assignments follow a similar pattern as role assignments, but also have some differences.

Capability	Role assignment	Deny assignment
Grant access	✅
Deny access		✅
Can be directly created	✅
Apply at a scope	✅	✅
Exclude principals		✅
Prevent inheritance to child scopes		✅
Apply to classic subscription administrator assignments		✅

Deny assignment properties

A deny assignment has the following properties:

Property	Required	Type	Description
`DenyAssignmentName`	Yes	String	The display name of the deny assignment. Names must be unique for a given scope.
`Description`	No	String	The description of the deny assignment.
`Permissions.Actions`	At least one Actions or one DataActions	String[]	An array of strings that specify the control plane actions to which the deny assignment blocks access.
`Permissions.NotActions`	No	String[]	An array of strings that specify the control plane action to exclude from the deny assignment.
`Permissions.DataActions`	At least one Actions or one DataActions	String[]	An array of strings that specify the data plane actions to which the deny assignment blocks access.
`Permissions.NotDataActions`	No	String[]	An array of strings that specify the data plane actions to exclude from the deny assignment.
`Scope`	No	String	A string that specifies the scope that the deny assignment applies to.
`DoNotApplyToChildScopes`	No	Boolean	Specifies whether the deny assignment applies to child scopes. Default value is false.
`Principals[i].Id`	Yes	String[]	An array of Microsoft Entra principal object IDs (user, group, service principal, or managed identity) to which the deny assignment applies. Set to an empty GUID `00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000` to represent all principals.
`Principals[i].Type`	No	String[]	An array of object types represented by Principals[i].Id. Set to `SystemDefined` to represent all principals.
`ExcludePrincipals[i].Id`	No	String[]	An array of Microsoft Entra principal object IDs (user, group, service principal, or managed identity) to which the deny assignment does not apply.
`ExcludePrincipals[i].Type`	No	String[]	An array of object types represented by ExcludePrincipals[i].Id.
`IsSystemProtected`	No	Boolean	Specifies whether this deny assignment was created by Azure and cannot be edited or deleted. Currently, all deny assignments are system protected.

The All Principals principal

To support deny assignments, a system-defined principal named All Principals has been introduced. This principal represents all users, groups, service principals, and managed identities in a Microsoft Entra directory. If the principal ID is a zero GUID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 and the principal type is SystemDefined, the principal represents all principals. In Azure PowerShell output, All Principals looks like the following:

Principals              : {
                          DisplayName:  All Principals
                          ObjectType:   SystemDefined
                          ObjectId:     00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
                          }

All Principals can be combined with ExcludePrincipals to deny all principals except some users. All Principals has the following constraints:

Can be used only in Principals and cannot be used in ExcludePrincipals.
Principals[i].Type must be set to SystemDefined.

List deny assignments

Follow these steps to list deny assignments.

Important

You can't directly create your own deny assignments. Deny assignments are created and managed by Azure.

Prerequisites

To get information about a deny assignment, you must have:

Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments/read permission, which is included in most Azure built-in roles.

List deny assignments in the Azure portal

Follow these steps to list deny assignments at the subscription or management group scope.

In the Azure portal, open the selected scope, such as resource group or subscription.
Select Access control (IAM).
Select the Deny assignments tab (or select the View button on the View deny assignments tile).

If there are any deny assignments at this scope or inherited to this scope, they'll be listed.

To display additional columns, select Edit Columns.

Column	Description
Name	Name of the deny assignment.
Principal type	User, group, system-defined group, or service principal.
Denied	Name of the security principal that is included in the deny assignment.
Id	Unique identifier for the deny assignment.
Excluded principals	Whether there are security principals that are excluded from the deny assignment.
Does not apply to children	Whether the deny assignment is inherited to subscopes.
System protected	Whether the deny assignment is managed by Azure. Currently, always Yes.
Scope	Management group, subscription, resource group, or resource.

Add a checkmark to any of the enabled items and then select OK to display the selected columns.

List details about a deny assignment

Follow these steps to list additional details about a deny assignment.

Open the Deny assignments pane as described in the previous section.

Select the deny assignment name to open the Users page.

The Users page includes the following two sections.

Deny setting	Description
Deny assignment applies to	Security principals that the deny assignment applies to.
Deny assignment excludes	Security principals that are excluded from the deny assignment.

System-Defined Principal represents all users, groups, service principals, and managed identities in an Azure AD directory.

To see a list of the permissions that are denied, select Denied Permissions.

Action type	Description
Actions	Denied control plane actions.
NotActions	Control plane actions excluded from denied control plane actions.
DataActions	Denied data plane actions.
NotDataActions	Data plane actions excluded from denied data plane actions.

For the example shown in the previous screenshot, the following are the effective permissions:

All storage actions on the data plane are denied except for compute actions.

To see the properties for a deny assignment, select Properties.

On the Properties page, you can see the deny assignment name, ID, description, and scope. The Does not apply to children switch indicates whether the deny assignment is inherited to subscopes. The System protected switch indicates whether this deny assignment is managed by Azure. Currently, this is Yes in all cases.

Prerequisites

To get information about a deny assignment, you must have:

Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments/read permission, which is included in most Azure built-in roles
Azure PowerShell

List all deny assignments

To list all deny assignments for the current subscription, use Get-AzDenyAssignment.

Get-AzDenyAssignment

PS C:\> Get-AzDenyAssignment
Id                      : /subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/storef2dfaqv5dzzfy/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments/6d266d71-a890-53b7-b0d8-2af6769ac019
DenyAssignmentName      : Deny assignment '6d266d71-a890-53b7-b0d8-2af6769ac019' created by Deployment Stack '/subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deploymentStacks/demoStack'.
Description             : Created by Deployment Stack '/subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deploymentStacks/demoStack'.
Actions                 : {*/delete}
NotActions              : {Microsoft.Authorization/locks/delete, Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/delete}
DataActions             : {}
NotDataActions          : {}
Scope                   : /subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/storef2dfaqv5dzzfy
DoNotApplyToChildScopes : True
Principals              : {
                          DisplayName:  All Principals
                          ObjectType:   SystemDefined
                          ObjectId:     00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
                          }
ExcludePrincipals       : {
                          DisplayName:  User1
                          ObjectType:   User
                          ObjectId:     675986ff-5b6a-448c-9a22-fd2a65100221
                          }
IsSystemProtected       : True

Id                      : /subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/vnetf2dfaqv5dzzfy/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments/36a162b5-ddcc-529a-9deb-673250f90ba7
DenyAssignmentName      : Deny assignment '36a162b5-ddcc-529a-9deb-673250f90ba7' created by Deployment Stack '/subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deploymentStacks/demoStack'.
Description             : Created by Deployment Stack '/subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Resources/deploymentStacks/demoStack'.
Actions                 : {*/delete}
NotActions              : {Microsoft.Authorization/locks/delete, Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/delete}
DataActions             : {}
NotDataActions          : {}
Scope                   : /subscriptions/11111111-1111-1111-1111-111111111111/resourceGroups/demoRg/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/vnetf2dfaqv5dzzfy
DoNotApplyToChildScopes : True
Principals              : {
                          DisplayName:  All Principals
                          ObjectType:   SystemDefined
                          ObjectId:     00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
                          }
ExcludePrincipals       : {
                          DisplayName:  User1
                          ObjectType:   User
                          ObjectId:     675986ff-5b6a-448c-9a22-fd2a65100221
                          }
IsSystemProtected       : True

List deny assignments at a resource group scope

To list all deny assignments at a resource group scope, use Get-AzDenyAssignment.

Get-AzDenyAssignment -ResourceGroupName <resource_group_name>

List deny assignments at a subscription scope

To list all deny assignments at a subscription scope, use Get-AzDenyAssignment. To get the subscription ID, you can find it on the Subscriptions page in the Azure portal or you can use Get-AzSubscription.

Get-AzDenyAssignment -Scope /subscriptions/<subscription_id>

Prerequisites

To get information about a deny assignment, you must have:

Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments/read permission, which is included in most Azure built-in roles.

You must use the following version:

2018-07-01-preview or later
2022-04-01 is the first stable version

List a single deny assignment

To list a single deny assignment, use the Deny Assignments - Get REST API.

Start with the following request:

GET https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/{scope}/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments/{deny-assignment-id}?api-version=2022-04-01

Within the URI, replace {scope} with the scope for which you want to list the deny assignments.

Scope	Type
`subscriptions/{subscriptionId}`	Subscription
`subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/myresourcegroup1`	Resource group
`subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/myresourcegroup1/providers/Microsoft.Web/sites/mysite1`	Resource

Replace {deny-assignment-id} with the deny assignment identifier you want to retrieve.

List multiple deny assignments

To list multiple deny assignments, use the Deny Assignments - List REST API.

Start with one of the following requests:

GET https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/{scope}/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments?api-version=2022-04-01

With optional parameters:

GET https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/{scope}/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments?api-version=2022-04-01&$filter={filter}

Within the URI, replace {scope} with the scope for which you want to list the deny assignments.

Scope	Type
`subscriptions/{subscriptionId}`	Subscription
`subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/myresourcegroup1`	Resource group
`subscriptions/{subscriptionId}/resourceGroups/myresourcegroup1/providers/Microsoft.Web/sites/mysite1`	Resource

Replace {filter} with the condition that you want to apply to filter the deny assignment list.

Filter	Description
(no filter)	Lists all deny assignments at, above, and below the specified scope.
`$filter=atScope()`	Lists deny assignments for only the specified scope and above. Does not include the deny assignments at subscopes.
`$filter=assignedTo('{objectId}')`	Lists deny assignments for the specified user or service principal. If the user is a member of a group that has a deny assignment, that deny assignment is also listed. This filter is transitive for groups which means that if the user is a member of a group and that group is a member of another group that has a deny assignment, that deny assignment is also listed. This filter only accepts an object ID for a user or a service principal. You cannot pass an object ID for a group.
`$filter=atScope()+and+assignedTo('{objectId}')`	Lists deny assignments for the specified user or service principal and at the specified scope.
`$filter=denyAssignmentName+eq+'{deny-assignment-name}'`	Lists deny assignments with the specified name.
`$filter=principalId+eq+'{objectId}'`	Lists deny assignments for the specified user, group, or service principal.

List deny assignments at the root scope (/)

Elevate your access as described in Elevate access to manage all Azure subscriptions and management groups.

Use the following request:

GET https://management.chinacloudapi.cn/providers/Microsoft.Authorization/denyAssignments?api-version=2022-04-01&$filter={filter}

Replace {filter} with the condition that you want to apply to filter the deny assignment list. A filter is required.

Filter	Description
`$filter=atScope()`	List deny assignments for only the root scope. Does not include the deny assignments at subscopes.
`$filter=denyAssignmentName+eq+'{deny-assignment-name}'`	List deny assignments with the specified name.

Remove elevated access.

List Azure deny assignments

How deny assignments are created

Compare role assignments and deny assignments

Deny assignment properties

The All Principals principal

List deny assignments

Prerequisites

List deny assignments in the Azure portal

List details about a deny assignment

Additional resources