How Microsoft’s PMC and Pulp Power Scalable, Secure Linux Package Delivery with Azure Integration

Microsoft’s Linux Software Repositories rely on PMC, powered by the open-source platform Pulp, to deliver secure, scalable Linux packages globally. Integrating Azure services, PMC ensures high availability, quality assurance, and seamless package delivery for Microsoft and its customers. Unique :

How Pulp Powers Microsoft’s Linux Software Repositories

Microsoft’s Linux software delivery just got a major boost thanks to Pulp, an open-source platform that manages software repositories. This upgrade is a game-changer for developers and sysadmins relying on Microsoft’s Linux packages.

What’s New: The Shift to Pulp

Previously, Microsoft used a custom-built system spread across multiple virtual machines. It was tough to maintain and prone to outages. Now, Pulp powers packages.microsoft.com (PMC), the backbone of Microsoft’s Linux software delivery.

PMC supports popular Linux distros like Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, and SUSE by delivering packages via apt, dnf/yum, and zypper. It handles everything from Azure Linux to VSCode and Edge Browser packages.

“Transitioning to Pulp enabled PMC to modernize its architecture by leveraging best-in-class Azure Services.”

Major Updates: Modern Architecture & Global Reach

By integrating Pulp with Azure services, Microsoft improved scalability, reliability, and global delivery. Azure Blob Storage stores packages, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) manages scalability, and Azure Front Door (AFD) ensures fast, worldwide content delivery.

This combination reduces legacy dependencies and rate-limiting issues. The result? A more stable, maintainable, and scalable system that serves users in hundreds of countries.

How PMC and Pulp Work Together

PMC operates as two main components: content ingress (handling uploads and repo management) and content egress (delivering packages to users). Pulp manages the repositories and metadata behind the scenes, while PMC handles security and user authentication.

AFD caches content globally, ensuring users get fast, secure access to packages no matter where they are.

What’s Important to Know: Quality, Security, and Community

Before publishing, PMC verifies package signatures and runs quality scans. They’re also integrating scanning directly into PMC for smoother quality assurance.

High availability is guaranteed by running Pulp on AKS and replicating content worldwide with AFD. Plus, PMC monitors both internal systems and edge performance to keep everything running smoothly.

“PMC ensures packages are delivered with integrity, enabling snapshotting for safe deployments with Pulp’s Checkpoints feature.”

Microsoft actively contributes to the Pulp community, adding features like apt-by-hash support, source package handling, and Redis caching improvements. This collaboration benefits both Microsoft and the broader open-source ecosystem.

Final Thoughts

Microsoft’s move to Pulp for Linux package management is a smart modernization step. It blends open-source flexibility with Azure’s cloud power, delivering a reliable, scalable service for Linux users worldwide.

For tech enthusiasts and sysadmins, this means faster, safer, and more consistent access to Microsoft’s Linux software. Check out packages.microsoft.com to explore the latest packages and updates.

PMC transitioned from a custom system to Pulp, enhancing reliability and maintainability.

Azure Blob Storage, Kubernetes Service, and Front Door boost PMC’s scalability and global reach.

Pulp supports multiple package types, including RPM and Debian, via a flexible plugin system.

PMC contributes actively to Pulp’s community, improving features like checkpoint support and caching.

Comprehensive monitoring at both edge and origin ensures robust service health and performance.

From the New blog articles in Microsoft Community Hub