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Troubleshoot Azure NAT Gateway

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This article provides guidance on how to correctly configure your NAT gateway and troubleshoot common configuration and deployment related issues.

NAT gateway configuration basics

Check the following configurations to ensure that NAT gateway can be used to direct traffic outbound:

  1. At least one public IP address or one public IP prefix is attached to NAT gateway. At least one public IP address must be associated with the NAT gateway for it to provide outbound connectivity.

  2. At least one subnet is attached to a NAT gateway. You can attach multiple subnets to a NAT gateway for going outbound, but those subnets must exist within the same virtual network. NAT gateway can't span beyond a single virtual network.

  3. No Network Security Group (NSG) rules or User Defined Routes (UDR) are blocking NAT gateway from directing traffic outbound to the internet.

How to validate connectivity

NAT gateway supports IPv4 User Datagram Protocol (UDP) and Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) protocols.

Note

ICMP protocol is not supported by NAT Gateway. Ping using ICMP protocol isn't supported and is expected to fail.

To validate end-to-end connectivity of NAT gateway, follow these steps:

  1. Validate that your NAT gateway public IP address is being used.

  2. Conduct TCP connection tests and UDP-specific application layer tests.

  3. Look at NSG flow logs to analyze outbound traffic flows from NAT gateway.

Refer to the following table for tools to use to validate NAT gateway connectivity.

Operating system Generic TCP connection test TCP application layer test UDP
Linux nc (generic connection test) curl (TCP application layer test) application specific
Windows PsPing PowerShell Invoke-WebRequest application specific

How to analyze outbound connectivity

To analyze outbound traffic from NAT gateway, use virtual network (VNet) flow logs. VNet flow logs provide connection information for your virtual machines. The connection information contains the source IP and port and the destination IP and port and the state of the connection. The traffic flow direction and the size of the traffic in number of packets and bytes sent is also logged. The source IP and port specified in the VNet flow log is for the virtual machine and not the NAT gateway.

NAT gateway in a failed state

You can experience outbound connectivity failure if your NAT gateway resource is in a failed state. To get your NAT gateway out of a failed state, follow these instructions:

  1. Identify the resource that is in a failed state. Go to Azure Resource Explorer and identify the resource in this state.

  2. Update the toggle on the right-hand top corner to Read/Write.

  3. Select on Edit for the resource in failed state.

  4. Select on PUT followed by GET to ensure the provisioning state was updated to Succeeded.

  5. You can then proceed with other actions as the resource is out of failed state.

Add or remove NAT gateway

Can't delete NAT gateway

NAT gateway must be detached from all subnets within a virtual network before the resource can be removed or deleted. See Remove NAT gateway from an existing subnet and delete the resource for step by step guidance.

Add or remove subnet

NAT gateway can't be attached to subnet already attached to another NAT gateway

A subnet within a virtual network can't have more than one NAT gateway attached to it for connecting outbound to the internet. An individual NAT gateway resource can be associated to multiple subnets within the same virtual network. NAT gateway can't span beyond a single virtual network.

Basic resources can't exist in the same subnet as NAT gateway

NAT gateway isn't compatible with basic resources, such as Basic Load Balancer or Basic Public IP. Basic resources must be placed on a subnet not associated with a NAT Gateway. Basic Load Balancer and Basic Public IP can be upgraded to standard to work with NAT gateway.

NAT gateway can't be attached to a gateway subnet

NAT gateway can't be deployed in a gateway subnet. A gateway subnet is used by a VPN gateway for sending encrypted traffic between an Azure virtual network and on-premises location. See VPN gateway overview to learn more about how gateway subnets are used by VPN gateway.

Can't attach NAT gateway to a subnet that contains a virtual machine network interface in a failed state

When associating a NAT gateway to a subnet that contains a virtual machine network interface (network interface) in a failed state, you receive an error message indicating that this action can't be performed. You must first resolve the virtual machine network interface failed state before you can attach a NAT gateway to the subnet.

To get your virtual machine network interface out of a failed state, you can use one of the two following methods.

Use PowerShell to get your virtual machine network interface out of a failed state

  1. Determine the provisioning state of your network interfaces using the Get-AzNetworkInterface PowerShell command and setting the value of the "provisioningState" to "Succeeded."

  2. Perform GET/SET PowerShell commands on the network interface. The PowerShell commands update the provisioning state.

  3. Check the results of this operation by checking the provisioning state of your network interfaces again (follow commands from step 1).

Use Azure Resource Explorer to get your virtual machine network interface out of a failed state

  1. Go to Azure Resource Explorer (recommended to use Microsoft Edge browser)

  2. Expand Subscriptions (takes a few seconds for it to appear).

  3. Expand your subscription that contains the virtual machine network interface in the failed state.

  4. Expand resourceGroups.

  5. Expand the correct resource group that contains the virtual machine network interface in the failed state.

  6. Expand providers.

  7. Expand Microsoft.Network.

  8. Expand networkInterfaces.

  9. Select on the network interface that is in the failed provisioning state.

  10. Select the Read/Write button at the top.

  11. Select the green GET button.

  12. Select the blue EDIT button.

  13. Select the green PUT button.

  14. Select Read Only button at the top.

  15. The virtual machine network interface should now be in a succeeded provisioning state. You can close your browser.

Add or remove public IP addresses

Can't exceed 16 public IP addresses on NAT gateway

NAT gateway can't be associated with more than 16 public IP addresses. You can use any combination of public IP addresses and prefixes with NAT gateway up to a total of 16 IP addresses. To add or remove a public IP, see add or remove a public IP address.

The following IP prefix sizes can be used with NAT gateway:

  • /28 (16 addresses)

  • /29 (8 addresses)

  • /30 (4 addresses)

  • /31 (2 addresses)

IPv6 coexistence

NAT gateway supports IPv4 UDP and TCP protocols. NAT gateway can't be associated to an IPv6 Public IP address or IPv6 Public IP Prefix. NAT gateway can be deployed on a dual stack subnet, but only uses IPv4 Public IP addresses for directing outbound traffic. Deploy NAT gateway on a dual stack subnet when you need IPv6 resources to exist in the same subnet as IPv4 resources. For more information about how to provide IPv4 and IPv6 outbound connectivity from your dual stack subnet, see Dual stack outbound connectivity with NAT gateway and public Load balancer.

Can't use basic public IPs with NAT gateway

NAT gateway is a standard resource and can't be used with basic resources, including basic public IP addresses. You can upgrade your basic public IP address in order to use with your NAT gateway using the following guidance: Upgrade a public IP address.

Can't use public IPs with internet routing preference together with NAT gateway

When NAT gateway is configured with a public IP address, traffic is routed via the Microsoft network. NAT gateway can't be associated with public IPs with routing preference choice Internet. NAT gateway can only be associated with public IPs with routing preference choice Microsoft Global Network. See supported services for a list of all Azure services that do support public IPs with the Internet routing preference.

Can't mismatch zones of public IP addresses and NAT gateway

NAT gateway is a zonal resource and can either be designated to a specific zone or to "no zone." When NAT gateway is placed in "no zone," Azure places the NAT gateway into a zone for you, but you don't have visibility into which zone the NAT gateway is located.

NAT gateway can be used with public IP addresses designated to a specific zone, no zone, all zones (zone-redundant) depending on its own availability zone configuration.

NAT gateway availability zone designation Public IP address / prefix designation that can be used
No zone Zone-redundant, No zone, or Zonal (the public IP zone designation can be any zone within a region in order to work with a no zone NAT gateway)
Designated to a specific zone Zone-redundant or Zonal Public IPs can be used

Note

If you need to know the zone that your NAT gateway resides in, make sure to designate it to a specific availability zone.

Can't use DDoS protected public IPs with NAT gateway

NAT gateway doesn't support public IP addresses with DDoS protection enabled. DDoS protected IPs are generally more critical for inbound traffic, since most DDoS attacks are designed to overwhelm the target's resources by flooding them with a large volume of incoming traffic. To learn more about DDoS protection, review the following articles below.

More troubleshooting guidance

If the issue you're experiencing isn't covered by this article, refer to the other NAT gateway troubleshooting articles:

Next steps

If you're experiencing issues with NAT gateway not listed or resolved by this article, submit feedback through GitHub via the bottom of this page. We address your feedback as soon as possible to improve the experience of our customers.

To learn more about NAT gateway, see: