Connect to Azure VM via .Net 6 Web Api

Question

Hello,

I am having a windows virtual machine in Azure which is inside a virtual network as usual. The VM is exposed via a public ip. Now I can comfortably RDP to that VM via that public ip and username/password from my local laptop.

The requirement is to connect to that VM via a .Net 6 Web API and execute a powershell script inside that VM and get the output of that. Is it anyway possible to connect to azure VM via API.

I have googled a lot but didn't found anything suitable or working. Or is it not possible at all.

Please advise. Any sample code would be highly appreciable.

Answer 1

Ok

I have used the following code to connect to an Azure VM using AAD credentials and successfully executed a powershell script on it... and the requirement is resolved.

Sharing the code if anybody need this kind of solution 😊

using Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc;
using Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute;
using Microsoft.IdentityModel.Clients.ActiveDirectory;
using Microsoft.Rest;

ConnectVM()
{
	string TenantId = "";
	string ApplicationId = "";
	string SubscriptionId = "";
	string ResourceGroup = "";
	string VirtualMachineName = "";
	string ClientSecret = "";
	
	var context = new AuthenticationContext($"https://login.microsoftonline.com/{TenantId}");	
	var credentials = new ClientCredential(ApplicationId, ClientSecret);
	var result = context.AcquireTokenAsync("https://management.azure.com/", credentials).Result;
	
	var token = result.AccessToken;
	var tokencredentials = new TokenCredentials(token);
	var computeClient = new ComputeManagementClient(tokencredentials)
	{
		SubscriptionId = SubscriptionId
	};

	var c = SdkContext.AzureCredentialsFactory.FromServicePrincipal(ApplicationId, ClientSecret, TenantId, AzureEnvironment.AzureGlobalCloud);

	var azure = Azure.Configure()
			.WithLogLevel(HttpLoggingDelegatingHandler.Level.Basic)
            .Authenticate(c)
            .WithSubscription(SubscriptionId);

	// Get the VM reference
	var virtualMachine = azure.VirtualMachines.GetByResourceGroup(ResourceGroup, VirtualMachineName);

	if(virtualMachine != null)
	{
		// Define the script to execute
		var scriptPath = "mypath/to/powershell/script.ps1";

		var runCommandInput = new RunCommandInput()
		{
			CommandId = "RunPowerShellScript",
			Script = new List<string> { System.IO.File.ReadAllText(scriptPath) },
			Parameters = new List<RunCommandInputParameter>()
		}

		var runCommandResult = virtualMachine.RunCommand(runCommandInput);

		//Retrieve the script execution output
		var scriptOutput = runCommandResult.Value[0].Message;
		return scriptOutput;
	}
	else
	{
		return "The VM is not found or there was an error connecting to it.";  
	}
}