Tutorial: Connect to Virtual Machine Scale Set instances using Azure PowerShell

A Virtual Machine Scale Set allows you to deploy and manage a set of virtual machines. Throughout the lifecycle of a Virtual Machine Scale Set, you may need to run one or more management tasks. In this tutorial you learn how to:

If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a Trial before you begin.

List instances in a scale set

If you don't have a scale set already created, see Tutorial: Create and manage a Virtual Machine Scale Set with Azure PowerShell.

List all the instances in your Virtual Machine Scale Set using Get-AzVM.

Get-AzVM -ResourceGroup myResourceGroup

ResourceGroupName Name                  Location    VmSize             OsType    NIC 
----------------- ----                  --------    ------             ------    --- 
myResourceGroup   myScaleSet_Instance1   ChinaNorth2     Standard_DS1_v2    Windows    myScaleSet-instance1-nic      
myResourceGroup   myScaleSet_Instance2   ChinaNorth2     Standard_DS1_v2    Windows    myScaleSet-instance2-nic    

Get NIC information

Using the NIC name, get the private IP address of the NIC, the backend address pool name and load balancer name with Get-AzNetworkInterface.

Get-AzNetworkInterface -Name myScaleSet-instance1-nic

Name                        : myScaleSet-instance1-nic
ResourceGroupName           : myResourceGroup
Location                    : ChinaNorth2
Id                          : /subscriptions//resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/myScaleSet-instance1-nic
ProvisioningState           : Succeeded
Tags                        : 
VirtualMachine              : {
                                "Id": "/subscriptions//resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/myScaleSet_Instance1"
                              }
IpConfigurations            : [
                                {
                                  "Name": "myScaleSet",
                              "/subscriptions//resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Network/networkInterfaces/myScaleSet-instance1-nic/ipConfigurations/myScaleSet",
                                  "PrivateIpAddress": "192.168.1.5",
                                  "PrivateIpAllocationMethod": "Dynamic",
                                  "Subnet": {
                                    "Id": "/subscriptions//resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/myScaleSet/subnets/myScaleSet",
                                    "IpAllocations": []
                                  },
                                  "ProvisioningState": "Succeeded",
                                  "PrivateIpAddressVersion": "IPv4",
                                  "LoadBalancerBackendAddressPools": [
                                    {
                                      "Id": 
                              40.88.43.135"/subscriptions//resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/myScaleSet/backendAddressPools/myScaleSet",
                                      "LoadBalancerBackendAddresses": []
                                    }
                                  ],
                                  "LoadBalancerInboundNatRules": [],
                                  "Primary": true,
                                  "ApplicationGatewayBackendAddressPools": [],
                                  "ApplicationSecurityGroups": [],
                                  "VirtualNetworkTaps": []
                                }
                              ]

Get backend pool details

Using the backend pool name, load balancer name and private IP address, get the port for associated with private IP address of the instance you want to connect to using Get-AzLoadBalancerBackendAddressInboundNatRulePortMapping.

Get-AzLoadBalancerBackendAddressInboundNatRulePortMapping `
  -ResourceGroupName myResourceGroup `
  -LoadBalancerName myScaleSet `
  -Name myScaleSet `
  -IpAddress 192.168.1.5

If you run the above command and find your load balancer doesn't have any inbound NAT rules, you can add inbound NAT rules using Add-AzLoadBalancerInboundNatRuleConfig. Once complete, run Get-AzLoadBalancerBackendAddressInboundNatRulePortMapping again.

$slb = Get-AzLoadBalancer -Name "myScaleSet" -ResourceGroupName "MyResourceGroup"
$slb | Add-AzLoadBalancerInboundNatRuleConfig -Name "myNatRule" -FrontendIPConfiguration $slb.FrontendIpConfigurations[0] -Protocol "Tcp" -IdleTimeoutInMinutes 10 -FrontendPortRangeStart 50000 -FrontendPortRangeEnd 50099 -BackendAddressPool $slb.BackendAddressPools[0] -BackendPort 3389
$slb | Set-AzLoadBalancer

InboundNatRuleName : myNatRule
Protocol           : Tcp
FrontendPort       : 50001
BackendPort        : 3389

Get public IP of load balancer

Get the public IP of the load balancer using GetAzPublicIpAddress.

Get-AzPublicIpAddress -ResourceGroup myResourceGroup    

Name                     : myScaleSet
ResourceGroupName        : myResourceGroup
Location                 : ChinaNorth2
Id                       : /subscriptions/resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/myScaleSet
ProvisioningState        : Succeeded
PublicIpAllocationMethod : Static
IpAddress                : 40.88.43.135
PublicIpAddressVersion   : IPv4
IdleTimeoutInMinutes     : 4
IpConfiguration          : {
                             "Id": "/subscriptions//resourceGroups/myResourceGroup/providers/Microsoft.Network/loadBalancers/myScaleSet/frontendIPConfigurations/myScaleSet"
                           }
DnsSettings              : {
                             "DomainNameLabel": "myscaleset-Instance1",
                             "Fqdn": "myscaleset-Instance1.ChinaNorth2.chinacloudapp.cn"
                           }
Zones                    : {}
Sku                      : {
                             "Name": "Standard",
                             "Tier": "Regional"
                           }

Connect to your instance

Remote Desktop to your machine using the Public IP address of the load balancer and the Port mapping to the machine instance you want to connect to.

Next steps

In this tutorial, you learned how to list the instances in your scale set and connect via SSH to an individual instance.