azurerm_automation_dsc_configuration is broken since provider version 2.96.0

[dz-sourced]

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Terraform (and AzureRM Provider) Version

Terraform v0.14.7
+ provider registry.terraform.io/hashicorp/azurerm v3.0.2

Affected Resource(s)

• azurerm_automation_dsc_configuration

Terraform Configuration Files

terraform {
  required_providers {
    azurerm = {
      source  = "hashicorp/azurerm"
      version = "=3.0.2"
    }
  }
}

# Configure the Microsoft Azure Provider
provider "azurerm" {
  features {}
}


resource "azurerm_resource_group" "example" {
  name     = "azurerm_issue_example"
  location = "Canada Central"
}

resource "azurerm_automation_account" "example" {
  name                = "account1"
  location            = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
  resource_group_name = azurerm_resource_group.example.name

  sku_name = "Basic"

}

resource "azurerm_automation_dsc_configuration" "example" {
  name                    = "test"
  resource_group_name     = azurerm_resource_group.example.name
  automation_account_name = azurerm_automation_account.example.name
  location                = azurerm_resource_group.example.location
  content_embedded        = "configuration test {}"
}

Expected Behaviour

A new DSC configuration should be successfully created.

Actual Behaviour

Trying to apply the above code snippet produces the following error, starting with version 2.96.0 of the azurerm provider:

2022/03/28 11:29:45 [DEBUG] azurerm_automation_dsc_configuration.example: apply errored, but we're indicating that via
 the Error pointer rather than returning it: making Read request on AzureRM Automation Dsc Configuration content "test
": automation.DscConfigurationClient#GetContent: Failure responding to request: StatusCode=200 -- Original Error: Erro
r occurred unmarshalling JSON - Error = 'invalid character 'c' looking for beginning of value' JSON = 'configuration t
est {}'

Steps to Reproduce

Run apply on the code snippet above:

1. terraform apply

References

I've done some preliminary debugging and I think the issue can be tracked down to the Azure SDK version change in provider v2.96.0:

terraform-provider-azurerm/internal/services/automation/automation_dsc_configuration_resource.go

Line 10 in 57c1717

"github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/services/preview/automation/mgmt/2020-01-13-preview/automation"

In the 2020-01-13-preview/automation the actual failure seems to happen when trying to unmarshall DSC Configuration content from JSON:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/blob/94316bad34922dee81518b17ddb1454d7a5f89c8/services/preview/automation/mgmt/2020-01-13-preview/automation/dscconfiguration.go#L384

Since the azurerm_automation_dsc_configuration.content_embedded is not a valid JSON we get an error. This was not happening in the previous version of the API 2018-06-30-preview/automation and the content value was just passed as is:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-sdk-for-go/blob/94316bad34922dee81518b17ddb1454d7a5f89c8/services/preview/automation/mgmt/2018-06-30-preview/automation/dscconfiguration.go#L383

Finally, the root cause can be traced to the change in the Swagger API definitions. The latest version of the GetContent API defines the output as a string type, which I assume is tried to be de-serialized from JSON by default:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-rest-api-specs/blob/3034ada77d465b317cda51250a92454824cca06b/specification/automation/resource-manager/Microsoft.Automation/stable/2019-06-01/dscConfiguration.json#L309

In the earlier version of the API spec the output type is set to file:
https://github.com/Azure/azure-rest-api-specs/blob/3026119ab41bbce77275cfa3a1afbabf43af5aea/specification/automation/resource-manager/Microsoft.Automation/stable/2015-10-31/dscConfiguration.json#L309

I don't know whether this was intentional API spec change, or whether there is a need to provide further type modifiers in the Swagger API or whether it's an issue with the SDK codegen tool.

Happy to open issues in SDK and API specs repo if someone could validate my assumptions about the root cause of the issue.

[dz-sourced]

I have also opened an issue with Azure SDK for Go — Azure/azure-sdk-for-go#17591

[prubis]

Probably another duplicate of #10858

@tombuildsstuff FYI

[tombuildsstuff]

Fixed via #22403

[github-actions]

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