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Azure Bastion

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Introduction

Microsoft on 18 June 2019 announced a new service called Azure Bastion, this is a service where the users can connect remotely to Azure VM without the danger of exposing RDP or SSH ports. This way critical VM deployments that need to be isolated from the internet are secured.

Features

There are a lot of features available come with the Azure Bastion service

  • No need for Public IP
  • Connect using RDP or SSH via the Azure Portal
  • Compatible with the most known Internet Browsers (Edge, IE, Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
  • No need for maintenance from the user side like updates for vulnerabilities, because the Azure Bastion service is managed by Microsoft.
  • No need for P2S VPN to RDP or SSH a Jumpbox VM

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Try Azure Bastion

Currently, the service Bastion is in Public Preview and to try it we must meet certain conditions.

Available Regions

The service is not yet available to all Regions but only in specific, which are :

Region
West Europe
West US
East US
South Central US
Australia  East
Japan East

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Register The Azure Bastion Provider

First, we must register the Azure Bastion Provider and this can be achieved by running the following powershell scripts.

Step 1. Register the feature AllowBastionHost

Register-AzureRmProviderFeature -FeatureName AllowBastionHost -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Network

Step 2. Re-register Microsoft.Network provider

Register-AzureRmResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Network

Step 3. Verify that the feature is registered

Get-AzureRmProviderFeature -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Network

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Create Azure Bastion Host

The following steps will guide us to create an Azure Bastion Host.

Step 1. Login to the Azure Portal - Preview

At the first step, we have login to the Azure Portal - Preview.

Step 2. Select To Create Azure Bastion Host

Click on the left blade, select All services , type [Bastions] in the search field and press Enter.

Step 3.  Add a Bastion Host

Select +Add to create an Azure Bastion Host.

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Step 4. Create a Bastion Host - Basic Tab

In the Basics Tab we have to  fill in few fields and then click Next to move to the other Tab.

Setting Value
PROJECT DETAILS
Subscription Create a New or Select a valid subscription
 Resource Group Select an existing or Create a New Resource Group
INSTANCE DETAILS
Name Type a Name for the Bastion Host Service
Region Select a region for the Bastion Host
CONFIGURE VIRTUAL NETWORKS
Virtual network Create a New or Select an existing VNet *
Subnet Create a New Subnet with name "AzureBastionSubnet" or Select an existing with this name
PUBLIC IP ADDRESS
Public IP address Create a new Public IP address or Select an existing
Public IP address name Type a Name for Public IP address
Public IP address SKU
Assignment  

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Step 5. Review + create

Before we create the Azure Bastion service we can review the configuration. If the validation is successful we have to select Create to proceed with the deployment.

Note

* At the image below we can see how to configure the VNet and more specifically the subnet where the Azure Bastion feature enabled. The name of the subnet MUST be AzureBastionSubnet.

When the deployment completed. Into the resource group, we have 3 services, like the image below shows.

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Use Azure Bastion Host

Note

To use the Azure Bastion Host service we must deploy an Azure VM in the VNet where the Bastion Host feature is enabled.

After a few minutes, the VM deployment is complete and as we can see the Public IP address is dissociated.

To connect to the VM over the web using the BASTION, we click Connect and from the pop-up window in the right of the menu select BASTION, type Username and Password and click Connect.

Few seconds later, we are connected to the VM using an Internet Browser.

Conclusion

Azure Bastion is a new service which can offer more security to users when they connect to an Azure VM. By using this service there is no need to enable RDP or SSH ports on the VM.

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See Also

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