Blocking lab VM’s outbound communication

Question

I’m trying to block all outbound communications on the lab VM’s Windows Firewall.

But the below public information states that we need to unblock Azure in order to use Azure Lab’s auto-shutdown.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/lab-services/administrator-guide#content-filtering

Please tell me the IP addresses that we need to unblock when using Azure Lab auto-shutdown as well as how to unblock them.

Also, can we use Azure Lab Services if we turn all the auto-shutdown settings off even if we have blocked all outbound communications on the lab VM’s Windows Firewall?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Hi @Mayumi Nakayama (CONVERGYS CORPORATION) , Thanks for your patience on this while I was confirming with the Product team.

Which IP addresses that we need to unblock when using Azure Lab auto-shutdown as well as how to unblock them?

Azure Guest Agent: This is built-in to Azure networking that is not 'blockable'. If the customer is blocking some other way (like 3rd party software on the VM), they must allow the agent to call out. (that's how Azure knows a VM has gone from 'starting' to 'running', for example.) You can read more about the agent here: Azure Virtual Machine Agent Overview - Azure Virtual Machines | Microsoft Learn . In this doc, you will see that IP 168.63.129.16 must be allowed.

Can we use Azure Lab Services if we turn all the auto-shutdown settings off even if we have blocked all outbound communications on the lab VM’s Windows Firewall?
After we have whitelisted the IP that will allow access to the Azure platform resources, this would enable using of Azure Lab Services as well.

Let me know if you have further questions in the comments and I will be happy to investigate. Thanks.

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Answer 2

Thank you for your reply.