Quickstart: Create a public load balancer to load balance VMs using Azure PowerShell

Article
08/12/2024

Get started with Azure Load Balancer by using Azure PowerShell to create a public load balancer and two virtual machines.

Prerequisites

An Azure account with an active subscription. Create a trial subscription
Azure PowerShell installed locally.

If you choose to install and use PowerShell locally, this article requires the Azure PowerShell module version 5.4.1 or later. Run Get-Module -ListAvailable Az to find the installed version. If you need to upgrade, see Install Azure PowerShell module. If you're running PowerShell locally, you also need to run Connect-AzAccount -Environment AzureChinaCloud to create a connection with Azure.

Create a resource group

An Azure resource group is a logical container into which Azure resources are deployed and managed.

Create a resource group with New-AzResourceGroup:

$rg = @{
    Name = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
}
New-AzResourceGroup @rg

Create a public IP address

Use New-AzPublicIpAddress to create a public IP address.

$publicip = @{
    Name = 'myPublicIP'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    Sku = 'Standard'
    AllocationMethod = 'static'
    Zone = 1,2,3
}
New-AzPublicIpAddress @publicip

To create a zonal public IP address in zone 1, use the following command:

$publicip = @{
    Name = 'myPublicIP'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    Sku = 'Standard'
    AllocationMethod = 'static'
    Zone = 1
}
New-AzPublicIpAddress @publicip

Create a load balancer

This section details how you can create and configure the following components of the load balancer:

Create a frontend IP with New-AzLoadBalancerFrontendIpConfig for the frontend IP pool. This IP receives the incoming traffic on the load balancer
Create a backend address pool with New-AzLoadBalancerBackendAddressPoolConfig for traffic sent from the frontend of the load balancer. This pool is where your backend virtual machines are deployed
Create a health probe with Add-AzLoadBalancerProbeConfig that determines the health of the backend VM instances
Create a load balancer rule with Add-AzLoadBalancerRuleConfig that defines how traffic is distributed to the VMs
Create a public load balancer with New-AzLoadBalancer

## Place public IP created in previous steps into variable. ##
$pip = @{
    Name = 'myPublicIP'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
}
$publicIp = Get-AzPublicIpAddress @pip

## Create load balancer frontend configuration and place in variable. ##
$fip = @{
    Name = 'myFrontEnd'
    PublicIpAddress = $publicIp 
}
$feip = New-AzLoadBalancerFrontendIpConfig @fip

## Create backend address pool configuration and place in variable. ##
$bepool = New-AzLoadBalancerBackendAddressPoolConfig -Name 'myBackEndPool'

## Create the health probe and place in variable. ##
$probe = @{
    Name = 'myHealthProbe'
    Protocol = 'tcp'
    Port = '80'
    IntervalInSeconds = '360'
    ProbeCount = '5'
}
$healthprobe = New-AzLoadBalancerProbeConfig @probe

## Create the load balancer rule and place in variable. ##
$lbrule = @{
    Name = 'myHTTPRule'
    Protocol = 'tcp'
    FrontendPort = '80'
    BackendPort = '80'
    IdleTimeoutInMinutes = '15'
    FrontendIpConfiguration = $feip
    BackendAddressPool = $bePool
}
$rule = New-AzLoadBalancerRuleConfig @lbrule -EnableTcpReset -DisableOutboundSNAT

## Create the load balancer resource. ##
$loadbalancer = @{
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Name = 'myLoadBalancer'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    Sku = 'Standard'
    FrontendIpConfiguration = $feip
    BackendAddressPool = $bePool
    LoadBalancingRule = $rule
    Probe = $healthprobe
}
New-AzLoadBalancer @loadbalancer

Configure virtual network

Before you deploy VMs and test your load balancer, create the supporting virtual network resources.

Create a virtual network for the backend virtual machines.

Create a network security group to define inbound connections to your virtual network.

Create an Azure Bastion host to securely manage the virtual machines in the backend pool.

Use a NAT gateway to provide outbound internet access to resources in the backend pool of your load balancer.

Create virtual network, network security group, bastion host, and NAT gateway

Create a virtual network with New-AzVirtualNetwork
Create a network security group rule with New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig
Create an Azure Bastion host with New-AzBastion
Create a network security group with New-AzNetworkSecurityGroup
Create the NAT gateway resource with New-AzNatGateway
Use New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig to associate the NAT gateway to the subnet of the virtual network

Important

Hourly pricing starts from the moment that Bastion is deployed, regardless of outbound data usage. For more information, see Pricing and SKUs. If you're deploying Bastion as part of a tutorial or test, we recommend that you delete this resource after you finish using it.

## Create public IP address for NAT gateway ##
$ip = @{
    Name = 'myNATgatewayIP'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    Sku = 'Standard'
    AllocationMethod = 'Static'
}
$publicIP = New-AzPublicIpAddress @ip

## Create NAT gateway resource ##
$nat = @{
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Name = 'myNATgateway'
    IdleTimeoutInMinutes = '10'
    Sku = 'Standard'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    PublicIpAddress = $publicIP
}
$natGateway = New-AzNatGateway @nat

## Create backend subnet config ##
$subnet = @{
    Name = 'myBackendSubnet'
    AddressPrefix = '10.1.0.0/24'
    NatGateway = $natGateway
}
$subnetConfig = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig @subnet 

## Create Azure Bastion subnet. ##
$bastsubnet = @{
    Name = 'AzureBastionSubnet' 
    AddressPrefix = '10.1.1.0/24'
}
$bastsubnetConfig = New-AzVirtualNetworkSubnetConfig @bastsubnet

## Create the virtual network ##
$net = @{
    Name = 'myVNet'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    AddressPrefix = '10.1.0.0/16'
    Subnet = $subnetConfig,$bastsubnetConfig
}
$vnet = New-AzVirtualNetwork @net

## Create public IP address for bastion host. ##
$ip = @{
    Name = 'myBastionIP'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    Sku = 'Standard'
    AllocationMethod = 'Static'
}
$publicip = New-AzPublicIpAddress @ip

## Create bastion host ##
$bastion = @{
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Name = 'myBastion'
    PublicIpAddress = $publicip
    VirtualNetwork = $vnet
}
New-AzBastion @bastion -AsJob

## Create rule for network security group and place in variable. ##
$nsgrule = @{
    Name = 'myNSGRuleHTTP'
    Description = 'Allow HTTP'
    Protocol = '*'
    SourcePortRange = '*'
    DestinationPortRange = '80'
    SourceAddressPrefix = 'Internet'
    DestinationAddressPrefix = '*'
    Access = 'Allow'
    Priority = '2000'
    Direction = 'Inbound'
}
$rule1 = New-AzNetworkSecurityRuleConfig @nsgrule

## Create network security group ##
$nsg = @{
    Name = 'myNSG'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    SecurityRules = $rule1
}
New-AzNetworkSecurityGroup @nsg

Create virtual machines

In this section, you create the two virtual machines for the backend pool of the load balancer.

Create two network interfaces with New-AzNetworkInterface
Set an administrator username and password for the VMs with Get-Credential
Create the virtual machines with:

# Set the administrator and password for the VMs. ##
$cred = Get-Credential

## Place the virtual network into a variable. ##
$net = @{
    Name = 'myVNet'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
}
$vnet = Get-AzVirtualNetwork @net

## Place the load balancer into a variable. ##
$lb = @{
    Name = 'myLoadBalancer'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
}
$bepool = Get-AzLoadBalancer @lb  | Get-AzLoadBalancerBackendAddressPoolConfig

## Place the network security group into a variable. ##
$ns = @{
    Name = 'myNSG'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
}
$nsg = Get-AzNetworkSecurityGroup @ns

## For loop with variable to create virtual machines for load balancer backend pool. ##
for ($i=1; $i -le 2; $i++){

    ## Command to create network interface for VMs ##
    $nic = @{
        Name = "myNicVM$i"
        ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
        Location = 'chinanorth3'
        Subnet = $vnet.Subnets[0]
        NetworkSecurityGroup = $nsg
        LoadBalancerBackendAddressPool = $bepool
    }
    $nicVM = New-AzNetworkInterface @nic

    ## Create a virtual machine configuration for VMs ##
    $vmsz = @{
        VMName = "myVM$i"
        VMSize = 'Standard_DS1_v2'  
    }
    $vmos = @{
        ComputerName = "myVM$i"
        Credential = $cred
    }
    $vmimage = @{
        PublisherName = 'MicrosoftWindowsServer'
        Offer = 'WindowsServer'
        Skus = '2019-Datacenter'
        Version = 'latest'    
    }
    $vmConfig = New-AzVMConfig @vmsz `
        | Set-AzVMOperatingSystem @vmos -Windows `
        | Set-AzVMSourceImage @vmimage `
        | Add-AzVMNetworkInterface -Id $nicVM.Id

    ## Create the virtual machine for VMs ##
    $vm = @{
        ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
        Location = 'chinanorth3'
        VM = $vmConfig
        Zone = "$i"
    }
    New-AzVM @vm -AsJob
}

The deployments of the virtual machines and bastion host are submitted as PowerShell jobs. To view the status of the jobs, use Get-Job:

Get-Job

Id     Name            PSJobTypeName   State         HasMoreData     Location             Command
-- ----            ------------- -----         ----------- --------             -------
1      Long Running O… AzureLongRunni… Completed     True            localhost            New-AzBastion
2      Long Running O… AzureLongRunni… Completed     True            localhost            New-AzVM
3      Long Running O… AzureLongRunni… Completed     True            localhost            New-AzVM

Ensure the State of the VM creation is Completed before moving on to the next steps.

Note

Azure provides a default outbound access IP for VMs that either aren't assigned a public IP address or are in the backend pool of an internal basic Azure load balancer. The default outbound access IP mechanism provides an outbound IP address that isn't configurable.

The default outbound access IP is disabled when one of the following events happens:

A public IP address is assigned to the VM.
The VM is placed in the backend pool of a standard load balancer, with or without outbound rules.
An Azure NAT Gateway resource is assigned to the subnet of the VM.

VMs that you create by using virtual machine scale sets in flexible orchestration mode don't have default outbound access.

For more information about outbound connections in Azure, see Default outbound access in Azure and Use Source Network Address Translation (SNAT) for outbound connections.

Install IIS

Use Set-AzVMExtension to install the Custom Script Extension.

The extension runs PowerShell Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server to install the IIS webserver and then updates the Default.htm page to show the hostname of the VM:

Important

Ensure the virtual machine deployments have completed from the previous steps before proceeding. Use Get-Job to check the status of the virtual machine deployment jobs.

## For loop with variable to install custom script extension on virtual machines. ##
for ($i=1; $i -le 2; $i++)
{
$ext = @{
    Publisher = 'Microsoft.Compute'
    ExtensionType = 'CustomScriptExtension'
    ExtensionName = 'IIS'
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    VMName = "myVM$i"
    Location = 'chinanorth3'
    TypeHandlerVersion = '1.8'
    SettingString = '{"commandToExecute":"powershell Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server; powershell Add-Content -Path \"C:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\Default.htm\" -Value $($env:computername)"}'
}
Set-AzVMExtension @ext -AsJob
}

The extensions are deployed as PowerShell jobs. To view the status of the installation jobs, use Get-Job:

Get-Job

Id     Name            PSJobTypeName   State         HasMoreData     Location             Command
-- ----            ------------- -----         ----------- --------             -------
8      Long Running O… AzureLongRunni… Running       True            localhost            Set-AzVMExtension
9      Long Running O… AzureLongRunni… Running       True            localhost            Set-AzVMExtension

Ensure the State of the jobs is Completed before moving on to the next steps.

Test the load balancer

Use Get-AzPublicIpAddress to get the public IP address of the load balancer:

$ip = @{
    ResourceGroupName = 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'
    Name = 'myPublicIP'
}  
Get-AzPublicIPAddress @ip | select IpAddress

Copy the public IP address, and then paste it into the address bar of your browser. The default page of IIS Web server is displayed on the browser.

Screenshot of the load balancer test web page.

Clean up resources

When no longer needed, you can use the Remove-AzResourceGroup command to remove the resource group, load balancer, and the remaining resources.

Remove-AzResourceGroup -Name 'CreatePubLBQS-rg'

Next steps

In this quickstart, you:

Created an Azure Load Balancer
Attached 2 VMs to the load balancer
Tested the load balancer

To learn more about Azure Load Balancer, continue to:

What is Azure Load Balancer?